Dallas  lore  IHjarp 


THE  BETTER  COUNTRY. 
THE  MAGICAL  CHANCE. 
EDUCATION   IN  A  DEMOCRACY. 
THE  SEER  OF  SLABSIDES. 
ROOF  AND  MEADOW. 
THE  HILLS  OF  HINGHAM. 
WHERE   ROLLS  THE  OREGON. 
THE  FACE  OF  THE  FIELDS. 
THE   LAY  OF  THE   LAND. 
NATURE  SERIES. 

BOOK      I.  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR. 

BOOK    II.  WINTER. 

BOOK  III.  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR. 

BOOK   IV.  SUMMER. 
THE  YEAR  OUT  OF  DOORS. 
WAYS  OF  THE  WOODS. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 


WHERE  ROLLS  THE 
OREGON 

BY 

DALLAS   LORE  SHARP 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
pre&  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,   1913  AND   1914,  BY  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY  THE   GOLDEN   RULE   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,   1914,   BY  THE   CENTURY   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY   DALLAS   LORE   SHARP 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED  INCLUDING  THE  RIGHT  TO  REPRODUCE 
THIS  BOOK  OR  PARTS  THEREOF  IN  ANY  FORM 

Published  June  IQIJ 


BIOLOGY 
LIBRARY 


BIOLOGY 
LIBRARY 


To  MY  FRIENDS 
WILLIAM  L.  FINLEY 

STATE  GAME  WARDEN  OF  OREGON 
AND 

HERMAN  T.  BOHLMAN 

LOVER  AND  PHOTOGRAPHER 
OF  WILD  LIFE 


M532970 


CONTENTS 

I.    THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  RESERVATION  .       i 

II.    THE  RAVEN  OF  THE  DESCHUTES     .  .     27 

HI.    FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS            ...  45 

IV.    THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT         .  .     69 

V.    ON  THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR           .  93 

VI.    THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD          .         .  .117 

VII.    THE  BUTTERFLIES  OF  MOUNT  HOOD  145 

VIII.    THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES       .         .  171 

IX.    MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS    .         .  .191 

X.    THE  WILD  MOTHER         .         .         .         .  an 

XL    MOUNT  HOOD  FROM  COUNCIL  CREST  .  237 

INDEX                             «47 


PREFACE 

T  was  not  to  write  a  book  that  I 
visited  the  Northwest.  One  need 
not  go  so  far  from  Massachusetts 
to  do  that.  The  apple  trees  under 
Mullein  Hill  are  as  full  of  books  as 

.   .  .   the  continuous  woods 
Where  rolls  the  Oregon. 

I  spent  the  summer  of  1 9 1 2  in  Oregon,  studying 
the  wild  life  of  the  State,  the  fish  and  game,  and 
particularly  the  work  of  the  Game  Warden  in  its 
educational  aspects.  I  took  no  pencil  with  me  for 
fear  I  might  write  out  my  eyes.  And  Nature  hates 
an  interviewer  anyway.  So  this  volume  is  not  a 
series  of  notes,  but  a  group  of  impressions,  deep, 
indelible  impressions  of  the  vast  outdoors  of 
Oregon. 

"  Vast "  is  the  right  word  for  Oregon,  vast  and 
varied,  —  the  most  alluring  land  to  the  naturalist 
within  the  compass  of  our  coasts.  From  Three- 
Arch  Rocks  in  the  Pacific  to  the  broad  backs 
of  the  Steins  we  travelled ;  from  the  peaks  of  the 


viii  PREFACE 

Wallowas  to  the  tule  marshes  of  Klamath  Lake 
Reservation  —  a  summer  far  greater  than  the 
pages  of  this  book.  For  I  have  not  spoken  of 
the  firs  of  the  Coast  Range,  nor  of  the  pines  of 
the  Cascades,  nor  of  the  orchards  of  the  river 
valleys,  nor  of  the  salmon  of  the  Columbia,  nor 
of  a  hundred  other  things  that  together  give  char- 
acter and  personality  to  the  State.  Nor  have  I 
spoken  of  the  hospitality  of  the  people ;  space 
would  fail  me,  for  it  is  the  largest  thing  in  the 
State. 

But  here  I  must  thank  Mr.  William  Lovell 
Finley,  the  State  Game  Warden,  to  whom  I  owe 
my  summer  in  Oregon;  and  here  express  my 
keen  appreciation  of  the  great  work  he  is  doing. 
To  his  friend,  and  my  friend,  Herman  T.  Bohl- 
man,  I  am  also  deeply  indebted ;  as  well  as  to  the 
deputy  wardens  who  were  extraordinarily  kind 
and  helpful  to  me. 

Oregon,  and  the  country  as  a  whole,  owe 
Finley  and  Bohlman  a  large  debt  for  what  they 
have  done  to  preserve  wild  life.  It  was  largely 
due  to  their  efforts  that  the  great  Federal  reser- 
vations of  Oregon  were  set  aside. 

I  wish  to  thank  them   and  Mr.  George  M 


PREFACE  ix 

Weister  of  Portland,  for  the  use  of  their  splendid 
photographs  as  illustrations  for  this  book.  My 
thanks  are  due  also  to  the  Editors  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  Country  Life  in  America,  and  St.  Nicholas 
for  privilege  to  reprint  the  chapters  that  appeared 
first  in  their  magazines. 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP. 
MULLEIN  HILL,  May,  1914. 


WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 
I 

THREE-ARCH   ROCK   RESERVATION 


WHERE   ROLLS  THE 
OREGON 

i 

THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  RESERVATION 


was  lifting.  The  thick,  wet 
drift  that  had  threatened  us  on  Tilla- 
mook  Bar  stood  clear  of  the  shoul- 
dering sea  to  the  westward,  and  in 
toward  shore,  like  an  upper  sea, 
hung  at  the  fir-girt  middles  of  the  mountains,  as 
level  and  as  gray  as  the  sea  below.  There  was  now 
no  breeze.  The  long,  smooth  swell  of  the  Pacific 
swung  under  us  and  in,  until  it  whitened  at  the 
base  of  three  dark  rocks  that  lay  in  our  course, 
and  which  now  began  to  take  on  form  out  of  the 
foggy  distance.  Gulls  were  flying  over  us;  lines 
of  black  cormorants  and  crowds  of  murres  were 
winging  past  toward  the  rocks;  but  we  were  still 


4     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

too  far  away  from  the  looming  piles  to  see  that 
the  gray  of  their  walls  was  the  gray  of  uncounted 
colonies  of  nesting  birds,  colonies  that  covered  the 
craggy  steeps  as  the  green  firs  clothed  the  slopes 
of  the  Coast  Range  mountains,  up  to  the  hang- 
ing fog. 

As  we  steamed  on  nearer,  the  sound  of  the  surf 
about  the  rocks  became  audible ;  the  birds  in  the 
air  grew  more  numerous,  their  cries  now  faintly 
mingling  with  the  sound  of  the  sea.  The  hole  in  the 
Middle  Rock,  a  mere  fleck  of  foam  at  first,  widened 
rapidly  into  an  arching  tunnel  through  which  our 
boat  might  have  run ;  the  sea  began  to  break  be- 
fore us  over  half-sunken  ledges ;  and  soon  upon  us 
fell  the  damp  shadows  of  Three-Arch  Rocks,  for 
now  we  were  looking  far  up  at  their  sides,  at  the 
sea-birds  in  their  guano-gray  rookeries,  —  gulls, 
cormorants,  guillemots,  puffins,  murres,  — encrust- 
ing the  ragged  walls  from  tide-line  to  pinnacle, 
as  the  crowding  barnacles  encrusted  the  bases  from 
the  tide-line  down. 

We  were  not  approaching  without  protest,  for 
the  birds  were  coming  off  to  meet  us,  more  and 
more  the  nearer  we  drew,  wheeling  and  clacking 
overhead  in  a  constantly  thickening  cloud  of  low- 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  5 

ering  wings  and  tongues.  We  rounded  the  outer, 
Shag  Rock,  and  headed  slowly  in  toward  the 
yawning  hole  of  Middle  Rock  as  into  some  mighty 
cave,  so  sheer  and  shadowy  rose  the  walls  above 
us,  so  like  to  cavern  thunder  was  the  throbbing  of 
the  surf  through  the  hollow  arches,  was  the  flap- 
ping and  screaming  of  the  birds  against  the  high- 
circling  walls,  was  the  deep  menacing  grumble 
of  the  lions,  as  through  the  muffle  of  surf  and 
sea-fowl,  herd  after  herd  lumbered  bellowing  into 
the  foam. 

It  was  a  strange,  wild  scene.  Hardly  a  mile 
from  the  Oregon  coast,  but  cut  off  by  breaker  and 
bar  from  the  abrupt,  uninhabited  shore,  the  three 
rocks  of  the  Reservation,  each  pierced  with  its 
resounding  arch,  heaved  their  heavy  shoulders 
from  the  waves  straight  up,  huge,  towering,  till 
our  little  steamer  coasted  their  dripping  sides 
like  some  puffing  pigmy.  They  were  sea  rocks, 
of  no  part  or  lot  with  the  dry  land,  their  beryl 
basins  wave-scooped,  and  set  with  purple  star- 
fish, with  green  and  pink  anemones,  and  beaded 
many  deep  with  mussels  of  amethyst  and  jet,  a- 
glitter  in  the  water's  overflow ;  and  just  above  the 
jeweled  basins,  like  fabled  beasts  of  old,  lay 


6     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

the  sea-lions,  lumpish,  uncouth  forms,  flippered, 
reversed  in  shape,  with  throats  like  the  caves 
of  ^Eolus,  hollow,  hoarse,  discordant ;  and  higher 
up,  on  every  jutting  bench  and  shelf,  in  every 
weathered  rift,  over  every  jog  of  the  ragged 
cliffs,  to  their  bladed  backs  and  pointed  peaks, 
swarmed  the  sea-birds,  web-footed,  amphibious, 
wave-shaped,  with  stormy  voices  given  them  by 
the  winds  that  sweep  in  from  the  sea.  And  their 
numbers  were  the  numbers  of  the  sea. 

Crude,  crowded,  weltering,  such  life  could 
never  have  been  brought  forth  and  nurtured  by 
the  dry  land ;  her  breasts  had  withered  at  the 
birth.  Only  the  bowels  of  the  wide,  wet  sea  could 
breed  these  heaps,  these  cones  of  life  that  rose  vol- 
canic from  the  waves,  their  craters  clouded  by  the 
smoke  of  wings,  their  belted  bases  rumbling  with 
a  multi-throated  thunder.  The  air  was  dank  with 
the  must  of  a  closed  room,  —  closed  for  an  seon 
past,  —  no  breath  of  the  land,  no  odor  of  herb,  no 
scent  of  fresh  soil ;  but  the  raw,  rank  smells  of 
rookery  and  den,  saline,  kelpy,  fetid;  the  stench 
of  fish  and  bedded  guano ;  and  pools  of  reeking 
ammonia  where  the  lion  herds  lay  sleeping  on  the 
lower  rocks  in  the  sun. 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  7 

A  boat's  keel  was  beneath  me,  but  as  I  stood 
out  on  the  pointed  prow,  barely  above  the  water, 
and  found  myself  thrust  forward  without  will  or 
effort  among  the  crags  and  caverns,  among  the 
shadowy  walls,  the  damps,  the  smells,  the  sounds; 
among  the  bellowing  beasts  in  the  churning  wa- 
ters about  me,  and  into  the  storm  of  wings  and 
tongues  in  the  whirring  air  above  me,  I  passed 
from  the  things  I  had  known,  and  the  time  and 
the  earth  of  man,  into  a  period  of  the  past,  ele- 
mental, primordial,  monstrous. 

ii 

I  had  not  known  what  to  expect,  because, 
never  having  seen  Three- Arch  Rocks,  I  could  not 
know  what  my  friend  the  State  Game  Warden 
meant  when  he  said  to  me,  "Come  out  to  the 
Pacific  Coast,  and  I  will  take  you  back  to  your 
cave  days ;  I  will  show  you  life  as  it  was  lived  at 
the  beginning  of  the  world."  I  had  left  my  Hing- 
ham  garden  with  its  woodchuck,  for  the  coast  of 
Oregon,  a  journey  that  might  have  been  com- 
passed by  steam,  that  might  have  been  measured 
in  mere  miles,  had  it  stopped  short  of  Three-Arch 
Rocks  Reservation,  which  lay  seaward  just  off  the 


8      WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

shore.  Instead  of  miles,  it  was  zones,  ages,  worlds 
that  were  traveled  as  I  passed  into  this  haunt  of 
wild  sea-bird  and  beast.  And  I  found  myself  say- 
ing over  to  myself,  "  Thou  madest  him  to  have 
dominion  over  the  works  of  thy  hands ;  thou  hast 
put  all  things  under  his  feet "  —  as  if  the  words 
had  never  before  been  uttered  in  human  ears,  and 
could  not  yet  be  understood. 

For  here  was  no  man-dominion;  here  the 
trampling  feet  of  man  had  never  passed.  Here 
was  the  primeval  world,  the  fresh  and  unafTrighted 
morning  of  the  Fifth  Day.  Then,  as  the  brute 
in  me  shook  itself  and  growled  back  at  the  brute 
about  me,  something  touched  my  arm,  and  I  turned 
to  find  the  Federal  Warden  of  the  Rocks  at  my 
side,  —  God,  as  it  were,  seeing  again  everything 
that  He  had  made,  everything  that  man  had  un- 
made, and  saying  again  with  a  new  and  a  larger 
meaning,  Have  dominion  over  the  fowl  of  the 
air,  and  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  what- 
soever passeth  through  the  paths  of  the  seas. 

And  here  at  my  side,  by  act  of  Congress,  stood 
that  Dominion,  the  Federal  Warden,  the  collect- 
ive, spiritual  man,  badged  and  armed  to  protect 
forever  against  the  individual  brute  man  the 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  9 

wild  life  of  these  three  rocks  and  the  waters 
adjacent. 

But  did  I  fully  understand  the  Why?  Did  I 
wholly  comprehend  the  meaning  and  the  value  of 
such  a  sanctuary  for  wild  life?  I  turned  to  the 
warden  with  the  question.  That  honest  official 
paused  a  moment,  then  slowly  answered  that  he  'd 
be  hanged  if  he  knew  why.  He  did  n't  see  any 
good  in  such  protection,  his  salary  notwithstand- 
ing. He  had  caught  a  cormorant  (one  from  the 
Rocks)  not  long  since,  that  had  forty-nine  young 
salmon  in  its  maw ;  and  as  for  the  sea-lions,  they 
were  an  unmitigated  nuisance,  each  one  of  them 
destroying  (so  it  had  been  reckoned)  five  hun- 
dred pounds  of  fish  every  day. 

Now  the  warden's  findings  are  open  to  ques- 
tion, because  there  are  good  reasons  for  the  cor- 
morant's catch  being  other  than  salmon  fry ;  and 
as  for  the  lions  it  is  pretty  certain  that  during 
their  stay  on  the  breeding-grounds  (Three-Arch 
Rocks)  they  do  not  feed  at  all,  having  come  in 
from  their  deep-sea  wanderings  with  fat  enough 
to  worry  along  with  until  their  family  cares  are 
over.  A  bull  sea-lion  with  half  a  dozen  wives  has 
his  flippers  full.  They  come  in  to  the  Rocks  fat; 


io     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

they  depart  lean ;  and  when  afar  on  the  waves  the 
chances  are  few  that  salmon  ever  become  their 
prey.  Still  I  have  no  proof  of  error  in  the  warden's 
figures.  I  will  accept  them  just  now,  —  the  five 
hundred  pounds  of  fish  a  day  for  the  sea-lion,  and 
the  forty-nine  salmon  fry  for  the  cormorant  (they 
would  easily  total,  four  years  later,  on  their  way 
up  the  Columbia  to  the  canneries,  a  half  ton),  — 
accepting  this  fearful  loss  of  Chinook  salmon  then 
as  real,  is  there  any  answer  to  my  question,  Why? 
any  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  setting  aside 
such  a  reservation  as  Three-Arch  Rocks  ?  for  my- 
self protecting  the  wild  life  of  these  barren  rocks 
against  myself? 

No,  perhaps  not,  —  not  if  this  protection  of  cor- 
morants and  sea-lions  means  the  utter  loss  of  the 
salmon  as  an  industry  and  as  an  article  of  food. 
But  there  is  an  adequate  and  a  paying  catch  of 
salmon  being  taken  in  the  Columbia  this  year,  in 
spite  of  the  lions  and  the  cormorants,  as  there  will 
be  again  next  year,  for  the  state  hatcheries  have 
liberated  over  seven  million  young  salmon  this 
summer  and  sent  them  safely  down  the  Columbia 
to  the  sea.  No,  perhaps  not,  —  no  good  and  suf- 
ficient reason  for  such  protection,  were  I  an  Astoria 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  n 

fisherman  with  the  sea-lions  pursuing  the  salmon 
into  my  nets,  as  the  imaginative  fishermen  say 
they  occasionally  do.  Instead  of  an  Astoria  fish- 
erman, I  am  a  teacher  of  literature  in  Boston  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world.  It  is  easy  at  Boston 
to  believe  in  the  value  of  Astoria  sea-lions.  It  is 
hard  anywhere  not  to  believe  in  canned  salmon. 
Yet,  as  sure  as  the  sun  shines,  and  the  moon,  there 
are  some  things  utterly  without  an  equivalent  in 
canned  salmon. 

Among  these  things  are  Three-Arch  Rocks  and 
Malheur  Lake  and  Klamath  Lake  Reservations 
in  Oregon,  and  the  scores  of  other  bird  and  animal 
preserves  created  by  Congress  all  the  way  from  the 
coast  of  Maine  across  the  States  and  overseas  to 
the  Hawaiian  Islands.  They  were  set  aside  only 
yesterday;  the  sportsman,  the  pelt-hunter,  the 
plume-hunter,  the  pot-hunter,  and  in  some  in- 
stances the  legitimate  fisherman  and  farmer  or- 
dered off  to  make  room  for  the  beast  and  the  bird. 
Small  wonder  if  there  is  some  grumbling,  some 
law-breaking,  some  failure  to  understand.  But 
that  will  pass. 

In  a  recent  dispatch  from  Copenhagen,  I 
read,  — 


12     WHERE   ROLLS   THE    OREGON 

"  Americans  of  Danish  descent  have  purchased 
a  tract  of  three  hundred  acres  of  typical  and  virgin 
Danish  heather  landscape,  which  is  to  be  pre- 
served for  all  ages  to  come  as  a  national  park. 
The  wonderful,  picturesque  Danish  heath,  which 
for  ages  has  furnished  inspiration  to  national  ar- 
tists and  poets,  has  been  disappearing  fast  before 
the  onslaught  of  the  thrifty  Danish  farmers,  who 
are  bringing  every  available  square  inch  of  Den- 
mark's soil  under  cultivation.  One  day  it  dawned 
upon  the  Danish  people  that  soon  there  would  be 
nothing  left  of  this  typical  landscape,  and  while 
the  good  people  of  Denmark  were  discussing 
ways  and  means  of  preserving  this  virgin  soil, 
Americans  of  Danish  descent  had  already  had  a 
representative  on  the  spot  who  had  bought  up 
from  a  number  of  small  landowners  the  three- 
hundred-acre  tract  known  as  Rebild  Bakkar  [Re- 
bild  Hills],  considered  the  most  beautiful  part  of 
the  heath,  besides  having  historical  associations 
dating  hundreds  of  years  back." 

I  am  sending  the  cablegram  to  the  warden  of 
Three-Arch  Rocks  and  to  the  Astoria  fisherman, 
and  to  myself,  underscoring  these  lines,  — 

"The  wonderful,  picturesque  Danish  heath, 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  13 

which  for  ages  has  furnished  inspiration  to  na- 
tional artists  and  poets,  has  been  disappearing 
fast  before  the  onslaught  of  the  thrifty  Danish 
farmers,  who  are  bringing  every  available  square 
inch  of  Denmark's  soil  under  cultivation." 

Three  hundred  acres  of  inspiration  to  artists 
and  poets  (and  to  common  people,  too),  or  three 
hundred  acres  more  of  vegetables,  —  which  will 
Denmark  have  ? 

Now,  I  have  a  field  of  vegetables.  I  was  born 
and  brought  up  in  a  field  of  vegetables  —  in  the 
sweet-potato  and  cabbage  fields  of  southern  New 
Jersey.  To  this  day  I  love  —  with  my  heart  and 
with  my  hoe  —  a  row  of  stone-mason  cabbages ; 
but  there  are  cabbages  on  both  sides  of  the  road 
all  the  way  home,  not  fewer  cabbages  this  year, 
but  more,  and  ever  more  and  more,  with  less  and 
ever  less  and  less  of  the  virgin  heather  in  between. 

The  heather  is  for  inspiration,  for  pictures  and 
poems;  the  cabbages  are  for  cold-slaw  and  sauer- 
kraut. Have  any  complained  of  our  lack  of 
cold-slaw  and  sauerkraut?  I  paid  five  cents  a 
pound  for  cabbage  at  the  market  recently  (a 
frozen  head  at  that) ;  but  even  so,  it  is  abundant 
as  compared  with  poetry. 


14    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

Cold-slaw  and  sauerkraut  and  canned  salmon 
let  us  have ;  but  let  us  also  have  the  inspiration 
of  the  virgin  heath,  and  the  occasional  restoration 
to  our  primitive,  elemental,  animal  selves,  in  a 
returning  now  and  then  to  the  clangor  and  con- 
fusion of  wild  life  on  Three- Arch  Rocks.  The 
body  feeds  on  cabbage.  The  spirit  is  sustained 
by  heather.  Drain  for  the  farmer;  irrigate  for  the 
farmer;  but  save  something  for  the  poet  and 
painter,  lest  they  cry  out  — 

"Water,  water,  everywhere, 
Nor  any  drop  to  drink." 

For  what  will  it  profit  a  nation  to  lose  its  soul  ? 
Denmark  has  fifteen  thousand  square  miles  de- 
voted to  her  body,  and  and  has  saved  three  hun- 
dred acres  for  her  soul!  What  besides  Three- 
Arch  Rocks  and  the  other  wild  patches  have  we 
saved  *? 

I  have  not  convinced  the  warden,  doubtless; 
but  if  I  have  encouraged  him  to  perform  his 
duty,  then  that  is  something.  And  well  he  knows 
the  need  for  his  guard.  The  sea  was  without  a 
sail  when  we  steamed  in  toward  the  Rocks.  We 
had  scarcely  landed,  however,  when  a  boat  hove 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  15 

in  sight,  and  bearing  down  upon  us,  dropped 
anchor  within  rifle-range  of  the  lion-herds,  the 
men  on  board  ready  with  their  guns  for  an 
hour's  sport! 

"Thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet"; 
and  the  feet  have  overrun  and  trampled  down  all 
the  things  except  in  a  few  scattered  spots  where 
the  trespass  sign  and  the  warden  are  keeping  them 
off.  I  followed  these  feet  over  the  last-left  miles  of 
wild  Canadian  prairie,  over  a  road  so  new  that  I 
could  see  where  it  crossed  the  faint,  grass-grown 
trails  of  the  buffalo.  I  followed  the  feet  over  the 
Coast  Range  mountains,  through  the  last-remain- 
ing miles  of  first-growth  timber,  where  the  giant 
boles,  felled  for  the  road,  lay  untrimmed  and 
still  green  beside  the  way  —  a  straight,  steel- 
bordered  way,  for  swift,  steel-shod  feet  that  shake 
the  mountain  and  the  prairie  in  their  passing, 
and  leave  behind  them,  down  the  trail,  the  bones 
of  herds  and  forests,  the  ripped  sod,  the  barbed 
wire,  the  shacks  that  curse  the  whole  horizon, 
the  heaps  of  gutted  tins,  and  rags,  and  scrap  — 
unburied  offal,  flung  from  the  shanty  doors  with 
rose-slip  and  grain  of  wheat,  to  blossom  later  in 
the  wilderness  and  make  it  to  rejoice. 


16     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

Only  it  will  not  be  the  wilderness  then,  or  the 
solitary  place;  it  will  not  be  prairie  or  forest. 
The  fir  tree  will  never  follow  the  rose,  nor  the 
buffalo-grass  the  great  gasoline  tractor.  I  have 
seen  the  last  of  the  unploughed  prairies,  the  last 
of  the  virgin  forests.  It  was  only  a  few  weeks 
ago  that  I  passed  through  the  mountain  forest, 
and  to-day,  as  I  am  writing,  those  age-old  trees 
are  falling  as  the  summer  grass  falls  across  the 
blade  of  the  mower. 

This,  I  know,  must  needs  be.  All  of  this  was 
implied,  delegated,  in  the  command,  "Be  fruit- 
ful, and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and 
subdue  it."  No,  not  all  of  this  needs  to  be;  nor 
ought  to  be. 

"  *  O  River/  said  Mary, 

'  Why  will  you  not  stay, 
And  tell  me  the  things 
That  you  see  on  your  way  ? 

" «  Oh!  why  must  you  hurry, 
The  day  is  so  long; 
Pray,  rest  a  short  time 
And  sing  me  a  song. ' 

«« '  My  child,'  said  the  River, 
'  If  I  stay  with  you, 
Why,  what  will  the  grasses 
And  sweet  flowers  do  ? 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  17 

«« <  The  mills  must  be  turned; 
Ships  taken  to  sea; 
And  the  news  of  the  day 
Must  be  carried  by  me.'  " 

The  river  is  right,  though  the  child  can  hardly 
understand;  and  the  child,  too,  is  right, — will 
the  river  ever  understand?  The  mills  of  men 
must  be  turned,  their  ships  must  be  taken  to 
3ea,  but  the  child,  the  eternal  child,  must  be  told 
a  story,  must  be  sung  a  song.  For  what  does  a 
child  know  of  mills?  It  cannot  live  by  wheaten 
bread  alone. 

The  river  is  turning  my  mill,  for  I  (the  mortal 
part  of  me)  and  my  children  (the  mortal  part  of 
them)  need  bread;  but  the  heart  of  me,  the  soul 
of  me,  the  immortal  child  of  me  and  of  my  chil- 
dren, craves  something  that  the  harnessed  river 
cannot  grind  for  us,  something  that  only  the 
wild,  free  river  can  tell  to  us  as  we  lie  beneath 
the  fir  trees  at  its  far-off  head  waters,  can  sing  to 
us  as  its  clear  cascades  leap  laughing  down  from 
pool  to  boulder,  in  its  distant  mountain  home. 

The  river  is  turning  my  mill.  I  must  grind 
and  the  river  must  help  me  grind.  But  I  must 
play  too,  and  I  must  be  told  a  story  and  be  sung 


i8     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

a  song.  Am  I  not  a  child?  and  do  I  not  owe 
the  child  something?  Must  I  put  the  child  in 
the  mill  to  grind?  There  are  children  in  our 
mills,  —  little  children,  yes,  and  big  children; 
young  children,  and  old  children, — more  old  chil- 
dren than  young;  grinding,  grinding,  grinding  as 
our  dank,  dark  rivers  go  turning  on,  too  hurried 
now  to  tell  a  story,  too  thick-tongued  to  sing  a 
song. 

Here  were  still  the  story  and  the  song,  here  on 
Three- Arch  Rocks ;  and  here  they  shall  ever  re- 
main; a  story  as  naked  as  birth,  a  song  as  stark 
as  death  and  as  savage  as  the  sea,  — 

Birth,  birth  and  death ! 
Wing  and  claw  and  beak; 
Death,  death  and  birth! 
From  crowded  cave  to  peak. 

Ill 

These  were  Isles  of  Life.  Here,  in  the  rocky 
caverns,  was  conceived  and  brought  forth  a  life 
as  crude  and  raw  and  elemental  as  the  rock  it- 
self. It  covered  every  crag.  I  clutched  it  in 
my  hands;  I  crushed  it  under  my  feet;  it  was 
thick  in  the  air  about  me.  My  narrow  path  up 
the  face  of  the  rock  was  a  succession  of  sea-bird 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  19 

rookeries,  of  crowded  eggs,  and  huddled  young, 
hairy  or  naked  or  wet  from  the  shell.  Every  time 
my  fingers  felt  for  a  crack  overhead,  they  touched 
something  warm  that  rolled  or  squirmed;  every 
time  my  feet  moved  under  me  for  a  hold,  they 
pushed  in  among  top-shaped  eggs  that  turned  on 
the  shelf  or  went  over  far  below;  and  whenever  I 
hugged  the  pushing  wall  I  must  bear  off  from  a 
mass  of  squealing,  struggling,  shapeless  things, 
just  hatched.  And  down  upon  me,  as  rookery 
after  rookery  of  old  birds  whirred  in  fright  from 
their  ledges,  fell  crashing  eggs  and  unfledged 
young,  that  the  greedy  gulls  devoured  ere  they 
touched  the  sea. 

An  alarmed  wing-beat,  the  excited  turn  of  a 
webbed  foot,  and  the  murre's  single  egg  or  its 
single  young  was  sent  over  the  edge,  so  narrow 
was  the  footing  for  Life,  so  yawning  the  pit  be- 
low. But  up  out  of  the  churning  waters,  up  from 
crag  to  crag,  clambers  Life,  by  beak,  by  claw, 
falling,  clinging,  climbing,  with  the  odds  forever 
favoring  Death,  yet  with  Life  forever  finding 
wings. 

I  was  midway  in  my  climb,  at  a  bad  turn, 
edging  inch  by  inch  along,  my  face  hard-pressed 


20    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

to  the  face  of  the  cliff,  my  fingers  gripping  a 
slight  seam  overhead,  my  feet  feeling  blindly  at 
the  brink  beneath,  when  there  came  up  to  me, 
small  and  smothered,  the  wash  of  the  waves,  — 
the  voice  of  space  and  nothingness  and  void,  the 
call  of  the  chasm  out  of  which  I  was  so  hardly 
climbing.  A  cold  hand  clasped  me  from  behind. 

With  an  impulse  as  instinctive  as  the  un- 
fledged murre's,  I  flattened  against  the  toppling 
rock,  fingers  and  feet,  elbows,  knees,  and  chin 
clinging  desperately  to  the  narrow  chance,  —  a 
falling  fragment  of  shale,  a  gust  of  wind,  the 
wing-stroke  of  a  frightened  bird,  enough  to 
break  my  hold  and  swing  me  out  over  the  water, 
washing  faint  and  far  below.  A  long  breath,  and 
I  was  climbing  again. 

Yet  in  that  instant  I  was  born  again,  not  a 
human  being,  but  a  mere  being;  stripped  of 
everything  except  life  and  the  clinging  to  life ; 
reduced  to  one  of  my  ancestral  animal  selves ; 
reverting  in  that  moment  of  time  through  the 
seons  of  my  development  back  to  the  bird  of  me, 
back  to  my  murre  self,  catching  by  chin,  knees, 
elbows,  feet,  and  fingers  to  the  rocky  seams  for 
life,  naked  life.  I  was  reborn  a  murre,  fighting 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  21 

against  the  forces  of  sea  and  sky,  to  live,  to  cling 
to  the  rock  from  the  wind  and  waves.  And  there 
was  born  within  me  at  that  moment  more  life, 
more  sympathy  with  life,  a  new  consciousness  of 
blood  brotherhood  with  all  birds  and  beasts  and 
things  that  live. 

We  were  on  Shag  Rock,  our  only  possible 
ascent  taking  us  up  the  sheer  south  face.  With 
the  exception  of  an  occasional  Western  gull's 
and  pigeon  guillemot's  nest,  these  steep  sides 
were  occupied  entirely  by  the  California  murres, 
—  penguin-shaped  birds  about  the  size  of  a 
wild  duck,  chocolate-brown  above,  with  white 
breasts,  which  literally  covered  the  sides  of  the 
three  great  Rocks  wherever  they  could  find  a 
hold.  If  a  million  meant  anything,  I  should 
say  there  were  a  million  murreg  nesting  on  this 
outer  Rock ;  not  nesting  either,  for  the  egg  is 
laid  upon  the  bare  ledge,  as  you  might  place  it 
upon  a  mantel,  a  single  sharp-pointed  egg,  as 
large  as  a  turkey's  and  just  as  many  of  them 
on  the  ledge  as  there  is  standing-room  for  the 
birds.  The  murre  broods  her  egg  by  standing 
straight  up  over  it,  her  short  legs,  by  dint  of 
stretching,  allowing  her  to  straddle  the  big  egg, 


as     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

her  short  tail  propping  her  securely  from  be* 
hind. 

On,  up  along  the  narrow  back,  or  blade,  of 
the  Rock,  and  over  the  peak,  were  the  well- 
spaced  nests  of  the  Brandt's  cormorants,  nests  the 
size  of  an  ordinary  straw  hat,  made  of  sea-grass 
and  the  yellow-flowered  sulphur-weed  that  grew 
in  a  dense  mat  over  the  north  slope  of  the  top, 
each  nest  holding  four  long,  dirty,  blue  eggs  or 
as  many  black,  shivering  young;  and  in  the  low 
sulphur-weed,  all  along  the  roof-like  slope  of  the 
top,  were  the  nests  of  the  gulls  and  the  burrows  of 
the  tufted  puffins  and  the  petrels.  The  cormo- 
rants were  the  most  striking  figures  of  the  sum- 
mit,—  all  around  the  rock  rim  that  dropped 
sheer  to  the  sea  they  stood  black,  silent,  stat- 
uesque. Everywhere  were  nests  and  eggs  and 
young,  and  everywhere  were  flying,  crying  birds 
—  above,  about,  and  far  below  me,  a  whirling, 
whirring  vortex  of  wings  that  had  caught  me  in 
its  funnel. 

So  thick  was  the  air  with  wings,  so  clangorous 
with  harsh  tongues,  that  I  had  not  seen  the  fog 
moving  in,  or  noticed  that  the  gray  wind  of 
Tiliamook  Bar  had  begun  to  growl  about  the 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  23 

crags.  It  was  late,  and  the  night  that  I  had  in- 
tended to  spend  on  the  summit  would  be  dark 
and  stormy,  would  be  too  wet  and  wild  for  watch- 
ing, where  one  must  hold  on  with  one's  hands  so 
close  to  the  edge,  or  slip  and  go  over. 

So  we  got  over  the  rim  along  the  south  face  of 
the  cliff,  up  which  we  had  climbed,  and  by  rope 
descended  to  a  small  shelf  under  an  overhanging 
ledge  about  forty  feet  above  the  waves.  Here, 
protected  from  the  northwest  wind,  and  from 
much  of  the  rain,  we  rolled  up  in  our  blankets, 
while  night  crept  down  upon  us  and  out  over 
the  sea. 

It  was  a  gray,  ghostly  night  of  dusk  and  mist 
that  swam  round  and  round  the  crags  and  through 
the  wakeful  caverns  in  endless  undulations,  coil- 
ing its  laving  folds  over  the  sunken  ledges,  and 
warping  with  slow,  sucking  sounds  its  mouthing 
tentacles  round  and  through  the  rocks.  Or  was 
it  only  the  wash  of  waves  *?  only  the  gray  of  the 
mist  and  the  drip  of  the  rain  ?  Or  was  it  the  re- 
turn of  the  waters  *?  the  resolving  of  firmament 
and  rock  back  through  the  void  of  night  into 
the  flux  of  the  sea  ? 
v  It  was  a  long  night  of  small,  distinct,  yet  mul- 


24     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

titudinous  sounds.  The  confusion  caused  by  our 
descent  among  the  birds  soon  subsided ;  the  large 
colony  of  murres  close  by  our  heads  returned  to 
their  rookery  ;  and  with  the  rain  and  thickening 
dark  there  spread  everywhere  the  quiet  of  a  low 
murmurous  quacking.  Sleep  was  settling  over  the 
rookeries. 

Down  in  the  water  below  us  rose  the  bulk  of  a 
sea-lion,  an  old  lone  bull,  whose  den  we  had  in- 
vaded. He,  too,  was  coming  back  to  his  bed  for 
the  night.  He  rose  and  sank  in  the  half  light, 
blinking  dully  at  the  cask  and  other  things  that 
we  had  left  below  us  on  the  ledge  belonging  to 
him.  Then  he  slowly  clambered  out  and  hitched 
up  toward  his  bed.  My  own  bed  was  just  above 
his,  so  close  that  I  could  hear  him  blow,  could  see 
the  scars  on  his  small  head,  and  a  long  open 
gash  on  his  side.  We  were  very  near. 

I  drew  back  from  the  edge,  pulled  the  blanket 
and  sail-cloth  over  me,  and  turned  my  face  up 
to  the  slanting  rain.  Two  young  gulls  that  had 
hidden  from  us  in  a  cranny  came  down  and 
nestled  close  to  my  head,  their  parents,  one  after 
the  other,  perching  an  instant  on  the  rock  just 
out  of  reach,  and  all  through  the  night  calling  to 


THREE-ARCH  ROCKS  25 

them  with  a  soft  nasal  quack  to  still  their  alarm. 
In  the  murre  colony  overhead  there  was  a  con- 
stant stir  of  feet  and  a  soft,  low  talk ;  and  over 
all  the  Rock,  through  all  the  darkened  air,  there 
was  the  silent  coming  and  going  of  wings,  shadow- 
wings  of  the  petrel,  some  of  them,  that  came 
winnowing  in  from  afar  on  the  sea. 

The  drizzle  thickened;  the  night  lengthened. 
Against  my  face  lay  the  damp  hair  of  my  little 
son.  He  was  sleeping  soundly,  the  rhythm  and 
rise  of  the  tide  in  his  deep,  sweet  breathing.  The 
day  of  danger  had  brought  him  very  close  to  me, 
so  near  that  now  I  might  almost  have  been  the 
mother  that  bore  him.  The  quiet  deepened.  I 
listened  to  the  wings  about  me,  to  the  murmur 
among  the  birds  above  me,  to  the  stir  of  the  sea 
beneath  me,  to  the  breathing  of  the  sleeping  men 
beside  me,  to  the  pulse  of  the  life  enfolding  me, 
of  which  I  was  part  and  heart;  and  under  my 
body  I  felt  a  narrow  shelf  of  rock  dividing  the 
waters  from  the  waters. 

The  drizzle  thickened ;  the  night  lengthened ; 
and  —  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep. 


II 

THE  RAVEN   OF  THE  DESCHUTES 


II 

THE  RAVEN  OF  THE  DESCHUTES 

s  our  train  clung  to  its  narrow  foot- 
ing and  crept  slowly  up  the  wild 
canon  of  the  Deschutes,  I  followed 
from  the  rear  platform  the  windings 
of  the  milk-white  river  through  its 
carved  course.  We  had  climbed  along  some  sixty 
^niles  to  where  the  folding  walls  were  sheerest  and 
the  towering  treeless  buttes  rolled,  fold  upon  fold, 
behind  us  on  the  sky,  when,  off  from  one  of  the 
rim-rock  ledges,  far  above,  flapped  a  mere  blot 
of  a  bird,  black,  and  strong  of  wing,  flying  out 
into  midair  between  the  cliffs  to  watch  us,  and 
sailing  back  upon  the  ledge  as  we  crawled  round 
a  jutting  point  in  the  wall  and  passed  from  his 
bight  of  the  deep  wild  gorge. 

Except  for  some  small  birds  in  the  willows  of 
the  river,  this  was  the  first  glimpse  of  life  that  I 
had  seen  since  entering  the  canon.  And  I  knew, 
though  this  was  my  first  far-off  sight  of  the  bird, 
that  I  was  watching  a  raven.  Beside  him  on  the 


3o    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

ledge  was  a  gray  blur  that  I  made  out  to  be  a 
nest  —  an  ancient  nest,  I  should  say,  from  the 
stains  below  it  on  the  face  of  the  rock. 

A  fleck  of  black  high  up  against  the  cliff,  he 
yet  seemed  to  fill  the  cafion.  The  shadow  of  his 
wings,  as  he  flew  out  in  the  sky  to  watch  us  pass, 
spread  up  and  down  the  valley.  The  smoke  of 
our  engine  would  quickly  disappear,  but  the 
shadow  of  the  raven's  authority  was  the  very  air 
of  these  cliffs  and  bluffs  and  buttes,  the  spell  that 
we  had  felt  since  the  mighty  walls  had  first  shut 
in  about  us. 

Or  did  I  imagine  it  all*?  This  is  a  treeless 
country,  green  with  grass,  yet,  as  for  animal  life, 
an  almost  uninhabited  country.  When  Lewis  and 
Clark  passed  here,  they  could  find  no  sticks  for 
camp-fires  and  lived  on  dog-meat  —  so  utterly 
without  life  were  the  hills  and  headlands  of  the 
river.  Such  lack  of  wild  life  had  seemed  incredi- 
ble ;  but  no  longer  so  after  entering  the  canon  of 
the  Deschutes.  A  deep,  unnatural  silence  filled  the 
vast  spaces  between  the  beetling  walls  and  smoth- 
ered the  roar  of  the  rumbling  train.  The  river,  one 
of  the  best  trout  streams  in  the  world,  broke  white 
and  loud  over  a  hundred  stony  shallows,  but  what 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        31 

wild  creature,  besides  the  osprey,  was  here  to 
listen*?  The  softly  rounded  buttes,  towering  above 
the  river,  and  running  back  beyond  the  cliffs,  were 
greenish  gold  against  the  sky,  with  what  seemed 
clipped  grass,  like  to  some  golf-links  of  the  gods ; 
but  no  creature  of  any  kind  moved  over  them. 
Bend  after  bend,  mile  after  mile,  and  still  ho 
life,  except  a  few  small  birds  in  the  narrow  wil- 
low edging  where  the  river  made  about  some 
sandy  cove.  That  was  all  —  until  out  from  his 
eyrie  in  the  overhanging  rim-rock  flapped  the 
raven. 

The  canon  was  no  longer  empty,  the  towering 
buttes  no  longer  bare.  This  was  the  domain  of  the 
black  baron,  and  he  held  it  all.  No  lesser  land, 
no  tamer,  gentler  country  would  fit  him,  som- 
ber, suspicious,  unsociable,  uncanny  croaker  of 
the  strong  black  wing!  It  was  here  that  I  had 
hoped  to  find  him,  knowing  that  to  such  remote 
and  rugged  regions  he  had  withdrawn  to  make 
his  nest  and  live  his  life.  How  his  silent  flight, 
his  black  body  on  the  shelf  of  the  rock  high  up 
in  the  canon  wall,  gave  shape  and  substance  to 
the  spirit  of  the  place !  If  the  fir  trees  are  a  house 
for  the  stork,  and  the  high  hills  a  refuge  for  the 


32     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

wild  goats,  no  less  is  the  steep-walled  canon  and 
the  dizzy  mountain  cliff  the  home  of  the  raven. 

Yet  the  raven  is  the  head  of  the  tribe  of 
crows,  with  ail  the  intelligence  and  cunning  of 
the  crow,  but  lacking,  it  seems,  the  crow's  easy 
disposition  and  sociable  ways.  Else  why  is  it  that 
he  does  not  adapt  himself,  as  the  crow  does,  to 
human  ways  ?  Are  we  at  fault  ?  Not  wholly,  for 
we  could  hardly  treat  him  worse  than  we  have 
the  crow.  Perhaps  the  crows  are  becoming  fewer ; 
I  think  they  are.  The  wonder  is  that  a  single 
crow  is  still  alive  in  the  land  after  all  their  years 
of  persecution.  But  here  they  are,  cawing  in  my 
wood-lot  this  quiet  November  day,  as  I  have 
heard  them  since  I  can  remember  hearing  any- 
thing. Here  in  my  pines  they  nest,  too.  Could 
not  the  raven  nest  here,  and  croak  here,  with 
them? 

So  far  as  I  am  concerned  he  could.  Nay,  I 
would  give  him  a  whole  wood-lot  for  a  nest  if 
he  would  come.  For  should  I  not  find  him,  as  I 
have  at  last  found  the  crow,  to  be  my  friend  and 
ally,  instead  of  my  enemy  *? 

A  new  and  better  day  has  dawned  for  the 
birds,  all  birds.  The  greatest  event,  surely,  that 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        33 

has  ever  happened  for  American  birds  took  place 
on  the  4th  day  of  March,  1913,  when  President 
Taft  signed  the  Weeks-McLean  bill  placing  all 
our  migratory  game  and  insectivorous  birds  under 
the  protection  of  the  Federal  Government ;  and 
perhaps  the  greatest  event  that  ever  happened  for 
the  birds  of  the  world  took  place  on  the  night 
of  September  3,  1913,  when  the  United  States 
Senate  passed  a  measure  prohibiting  the  impor- 
tation of  the  plumage  of  wild  birds  into  this 
country,  except  for  scientific  purposes. 

Neither  of  these  bills  will  directly  protect  the 
crow,  except  as  they  are  sure  to  help  protect  all 
birds.  But  the  crow  will  be  cared  for.  The  Gov- 
ernment's book  on  the  crow  shows  past  all  doubt 
that  he  is,  in  the  long  run,  beneficial;  that  we  are 
tremendously  in  his  debt,  notwithstanding  his  toll 
of  corn ;  and  that  he  must  not  only  be  allowed  to 
dwell  among  us,  but  encouraged  by  every  means 
to  make  himself  free  with  our  fields  and  wood- 
lots. 

And  he  will  do  it  without  encouragement. 
All  he  asks  is  decent  neighborly  treatment.  He 
will  meet  us  more  than  halfway.  The  light  and 
the  laws  have  come  too  late  for  many  of  our 


34    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

birds  —  for  those  that  have  gone  forever  from  the 
earth.  The  State  of  Massachusetts  has  a  game 
warden  on  the  Island  of  Martha's  Vineyard,  who, 
as  I  am  writing,  is  policing  the  haunt  of  the  few 
wild  heath  hens  there,  the  last  survivors  of  a 
noble  family  of  grouse  that,  hardly  a  hundred 
years  ago,  was  found  locally  throughout  southern 
New  England  and  the  Middle  States.  Have  the 
laws  and  the  light  come  too  late  for  the  heath 
hen? 

Perhaps  with  this  remnant  we  can  yet  save 
the  race.  In  1890  it  was  estimated  that  there 
were  from  120  to  200  birds  on  the  island.  A  few 
years  later  (1907),  they  had  been  so  nearly  ex- 
terminated, that  only  21  were  found  to  have 
escaped.  To-day  (1913)  some  three  or  four  hun- 
dred are  reported  from  the  island.  If  the  light 
and  laws  have  not  come  too  late,  the  heath  hen, 
from  this  mere  handful,  may  be  increased  until 
they  have  scattered  themselves  once  more  over 
their  former  haunts. 

But  what  can  we  ever  do  for  the  raven  ?  And 
for  the  birds  of  prey4?  And  for  such  solitary 
creatures  as  the  great  California  condor,  now  on 
the  verge  of  extinction  *? 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        35 

As  for  the  great  condor,  he  is  passing  from  the 
peaks  of  his  mountain  home  because  he  is  being 
wantonly  shot.  His  great  spread  of  wing  is  a 
mark  for  the  hunter.  He  is  being  shot  for  the 
mark's  sake,  his  carcass  left  to  rot  where  it  falls ; 
while  from  the  skies  of  the  Sierra  are  snatched 
forever  the  most  thrilling  wings  that  shall  ever 
coast  the  clouds. 

It  seems  certain  that  the  eagles  and  the  greater 
hawks  must  pass,  as  being  unfit  for  a  civilized 
scheme  of  things.  But  the  owls  and  the  lesser 
hawks  should  remain,  and  along  with  them  the 
wilder,  shyer,  more  suspicious  birds  like  the  raven. 

Shall  he  need  to  be  educated  *?  Or  is  nothing 
more  necessary  than  that  we  show  him  our  good 
faith  2  It  may  be  that  I  have  misunderstood  his 
mind  toward  me.  Perhaps  I  read  things  into  his 
character  that  I  found  in  a  book,  — 

"  Once  upon  a  midnight  dreary,"  — 

when  I  was  a  child.  Perhaps  I  have  Poe's  raven 
and  the  raven  of  the  Deschutes  canon  mixed 
in  my  mind.  But  I  watched  him  in  the  desert 
rim-rock  country,  and  there  he  seemed  to  be  the 
most  aloof,  the  most  alien  in  his  attitude,  of  all 


36     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

wild  things  I  have  ever  seen.  In  the  high  rim» 
rock  ledges  of  the  Blitzen  River  valley  I  watched 
several  flocks  of  the  big,  black  birds.  Two  speci- 
mens were  shot  for  their  skins,  and  for  what  we 
could  learn  of  their  feeding  habits  from  the  con- 
tents of  their  gizzards.  One  of  the  birds  fell  at  my 
feet,  his  strong,  wild  spirit  gone,  and  only  the 
black  form  left,  with  its  powerful  beak  and  wise, 
crafty  face.  But  even  this  body  I  took  up  and 
touched  with  a  feeling  of  wonder  and  something 
akin  to  awe. 

Surely  he  is  too  wise  a  bird  to  be  driven  from 
his  inheritance  because  of  fear  of  us.  The  grizzly 
bears  come  and  go  at  will  in  the  Yellowstone 
National  Park  because  they  know  we  mean  no 
harm.  The  fierce  spirit  of  the  beast  is  led  about 
by  gentleness  and  by  good  faith,  kept  inviolate. 
If  the  bear,  why  not  the  raven  2 

John  Muir,  speaking  of  the  Clarke  crow  of  the 
high  Sierra,  a  relation  of  the  raven,  says :  "  He 
dwells  far  back  on  the  high  stormbeaten  margin 
of  the  forest,  where  the  mountain  pine,  juniper, 
and  hemlock  grow  wide  apart  on  glacier  pave- 
ments and  domes  and  rough  crumbling  ridges, 
and  the  dwarf  pine  makes  a  low  crinkled  growth 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        37 

along  the  flanks  of  the  Summit  peaks.  In  so  open 
a  region,  of  course,  he  is  well  seen.  Everybody 
notices  him,  and  nobody  at  first  knows  what  to 
make  of  him.  One  guesses  he  must  be  a  wood- 
pecker ;  another  a  crow  or  some  sort  of  jay ; 
another  a  magpie.  He  seems  to  be  a  pretty  thor- 
oughly mixed  and  fermented  compound  of  all 
these  birds,  has  all  their  strength,  cunning,  shyness, 
thievishness,  and  wary,  suspicious  curiosity  com- 
bined and  condensed." 

I  took  it  from  this  account  that  if  in  my  moun- 
tain climbing  I  got  a  long-distance  glimpse  of 
the  Clarke  crow,  I  could  count  myself  lucky,  for 
is  n't  he  the  wildest  of  birds  *?  On  the  contrary,  I 
was  amazed  to  find  the  wary  creature  almost 
eating  out  of  my  hand  at  Cloud  Cap  Inn,  half- 
way up  the  side  of  Mount  Hood.  Here,  on  the 
timber-line,  in  the  haunt  of  these  birds,  was  a 
house,  and  human  visitors  in  the  summer,  who  fed 
the  crows,  and  who  had  so  far  tamed  them  as  to 
make  them  almost  as  familiar  as  chickens,  much 
more  sociable  and  trusting  than  our  Eastern  blue 
jays  or  our  common  crows. 

If  this  can  be  done  to  the  Clarke  crow  in  the 
remote  summits,  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  tame 


38     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

the  raven  till  he  will  accept  a  ledge  from  our 
hands  or  a  nest-tree  in  our  parks  and  groves, 
and  with  him  tame  every  other  shy,  suspicious 
spirit  that  hides  from  hurt  and  destruction  in  the 
"  holy  mountain,"  when  the  knowledge  and  love 
of  wild  life  shall  cover  the  earth  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea. 

English  human  life  and  wild  life  have  arrived 
at  a  much  closer  sympathy  and  understanding 
than  we,  in  this  country,  appreciate.  Wild  life  has 
been  protected  there  for  centuries,  and  there  even 
the  raven  has  held  on  in  solitary  pairs,  occupying 
for  generations  the  same  ancient  trees.  It  seems 
that  gradually  they  are  dying  out  and  may  pass 
forever.  But  the  English  people  love  their  birds; 
and  how  often  the  raven  comes  in  for  his  share, 
both  of  reproach  and  admiration,  his  historians 
without  exception  endowing  him  with  a  great- 
ness of  spirit  that  comes  close  to  majesty ! 

There  is  no  more  interesting  chapter  in  the 
lives  of  British  birds  than  that  on  the  raven.  I 
have  never  read  anything  about  our  American 
raven  that  shows  the  careful  watching  and  the 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  following  description 
of  the  English  bird. 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        39 

Says  the  writer:  — 

"  They  will  tag  with  one  another  in  midair 
and  often  tumble  down  a  fathom  or  two,  as  if 
shot,  to  turn  right  over  on  their  backs,  in  sheer 
merriment ;  when  the  wind  is  high,  the  tempest- 
loving  birds  shoot  up  in  the  air  like  a  rocket  or 
a  towering  partridge,  to  an  immense  height ;  and 
then,  by  closing  their  wings,  drop,  in  a  series  of 
rapid  jerks  and  plunges,  which  they  can  check 
at  pleasure,  down  to  the  ground.  The  male  raven, 
while  his  mate  is  sitting,  keeps  anxious  watch 
over  her,  and  croaks  savagely  when  any  one 
approaches,  or  sallies  forth  in  eager  tournament, 
against  any  rook,  or  crow,  or  hawk,  or  larger 
bird  of  prey  which  intrudes  on  his  domain. 

"  If  you  can  manage  to  evade  his  watchful 
eye,  and  enter  the  wood  unobserved,  you  can, 
sometimes,  lie  down  quite  still,  in  sight  of  the 
nest  and  note  all  that  is  going  on.  You  will  see 
him  perch  upon  the  very  top  of  an  adjoining  fir  tree, 
or  whet  his  beak,  as  he  is  fond  of  doing,  against 
one  of  its  branches,  or  fiercely  tear  off  others  and 
drop  them  below.  You  will  hear  him  utter  a 
low  gurgling  note  of  conjugal  endearment,  which 
will,  sometimes,  lure  his  mate  from  her  charge, 


40     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

and  then,  after  a  little  coze  and  talk  together, 
you  will  see  him,  unlike  many  husbands,  relieve 
her,  for  the  time,  of  her  responsibilities,  and  take 
his  own  turn  upon  the  nest." 

The  raven  has  but  one  mate ;  he  pairs  for  life, 
and  as  he  lives  to  a  very  great  age,  the  strength 
of  his  affection,  his  tenderness  and  fidelity  impart 
to  him  a  dignity  and  a  quality  of  character  hardly 
possessed  by  any  other  bird. 

All  this  seems  to  be  based  on  a  superior  de- 
gree of  intelligence,  a  quality  of  mind  that  shows 
itself  among  all  the  members  of  the  raven  family. 
It  is  especially  noticeable  among  the  crows. 
There  are  no  other  birds  in  my  woods  that  seem 
half  so  intelligent  and  wise  as  they.  Watch  the 
ways  of  your  tame  crow,  study  the  light  in  his 
eye,  especially  when  he  is  up  to  mischief,  if  you 
would  see  a  mind  within  that  is  pretty  nearly 
human. 

Or  watch  the  blue  jays  or  the  magpies  or  the 
whiskey-jacks — "camp-robbers,"  as  they  are  called. 
These  lovely  fluffy  birds  of  the  Canadian  woods 
and  wild  Western  mountains  are,  I  think,  the 
smallest  of  the  family.  I  had  an  excellent  chance 
to  study  their  doings  in  the  Wallowa  Mountains. 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN        41 

No  other  birds  of  equal  curiosity  and  intelli- 
gence have  I  ever  seen.  Far  off  in  the  most  dis- 
tant wilderness,  where  possibly  no  human  foot 
had  trodden  for  months,  we  would  camp,  and 
immediately  the  robbers  would  gather,  flapping 
out  of  some  tall  fir-top  across  a  meadow  to  light 
upon  the  tree-top  nearest  to  us.  Here  they  would 
perch  and  squall,  and  find  their  way  down  to 
the  sizzling  frying-pans,  to  see  what  sour-dough 
bread  was  like,  and  if  there  might  be  anything 
left  in  the  condensed-milk  tins. 

Right  out  of  the  unbroken  forest  they  came, 
straight  down  to  the  fire  —  because  they  wanted 
to  know  what  they  did  n't  understand.  The  in- 
terest (curiosity,  if  you  choose),  the  confidence, 
the  impertinence,  indeed,  seemed  so  unnatural, 
unbirdlike,  here  where  all  was  wild,  as  to  be 
almost  uncanny.  No  crow  or  raven  would  go 
to  that  length,  because  the  years  of  persecution 
have  taught  them  to  temper  their  curiosity  with 
extreme  caution;  but  both  birds,  and  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family,  are  at  heart  friendly,  and  would 
get  on  well  with  us,  would  we  show  ourselves 
neighborly. 

And  they  shall  get  on  with  us.   For  the  first 


42     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

time  since  the  slaughter  of  wild  life  began  on 
these  shores  the  country  as  a  whole  has  been 
aroused  to  the  need  of  instant  and  country-wide 
protection.  The  Federal  Government  has  acted. 
As  I  am  writing  these  lines,  the  custom-house 
officers  are  snipping  off  the  lovely  aigrettes  from 
the  hats  brought  into  our  ports  from  abroad.  The 
women  are  weeping  and  wringing  their  hands 
and  doing  more  violent  things  at  the  wicked  de- 
struction of  the  costly  plumes;  but  could  they 
see  the  white  heron  rookeries  with  the  heaps  of 
rotting  carcasses,  and  the  nests  of  piping,  starving 
young,  could  they  see  the  plumes  stripped  from 
the  brooding  mothers'  backs,  they  would  under- 
stand; and  no  more  would  they  make  themselves 
the  occasion  for  such  cruel,  unspeakable  destruc- 
tion. 

And  so  it  will  soon  be  with  us  in  our  feeling 
for  the  new  federal  laws  prohibiting  the  shooting 
of  the  migratory  birds.  A  few  hunters  think  that 
their  rights  (to  kill  the  wild  birds  that  fly  over 
and  belong  to  us  all,  but  to  no  one  person)  are 
being  encroached  upon.  But  they  will  learn  bet- 
ter soon.  And  soon  we  shall  all  of  us  learn  better 
how  to  live  with  the  birds  and  other  wild  things, 


THE  DESCHUTES  RAVEN       43 

and  let  them  live  with  us.  We  are  only  begin- 
ning to  realize  our  deep  dependence  upon  our 
wild  neighbors,  and  the  birds  especially.  As  this 
knowledge  grows,  and  as  our  love  for  wild  life 
grows,  we  shall  draw  closer  and  closer  together, 
we  shall  share  and  share  alike,  birds  and  beasts 
and  men,  all  the  things  we  have.  We  shall  even 
learn  to  make  all  of  our  aigrettes  —  of  horsehair ! 
Then  in  that  day  (if  he  can  find  him  a  dwelling- 
place  until  that  day  come)  even  the  raven,  the 
wild  black  prince  of  birds,  shall  build  his  nest 
without  fear  of  the  trains  that  thunder  through 
the  canon  far  below  him,  and  without  harm  from 
the  shepherds  whose  flocks  feed  in  the  sage  back 
on  the  wide  plains  above. 


Ill 

FROM   BEND   TO  BURNS 


HI 
FROM  BEND  TO   BURNS 

HE  clutch  snapped  in  with  a  jump; 
forward,  backward  shot  the  lever 
—  we  were  rounding  a  corner  in  a 
whirl  of  dust,  Bend  behind  us,  and 
the  auto-stage  like  some  giant  jack 
rabbit  bounding  through  the  sagebrush  for  Burns, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  across  the  desert. 

Think  of  starting  from  New  York  for  Wilming- 
ton, Delaware,  or  from  Boston  for  New  Haven, 
Connecticut,  with  nothing,  absolutely  nothing  but 
sagebrush  and  greasewood  and  stony  lava  ridges 
and  a  barely  discernible  trail  in  between !  with  a 
homesteader's  shack  for  Providence,  another  shack 
for  Norwich,  and  sage,  sage,  sage ! 

It  was  the  size  of  the  West  and  the  spirit  of 
the  West  —  this  combination  of  sage  and  auto- 
mobile—  that  struck  me  as  most  unlike  things 
back  East,  size  and  spirit  commensurate.  The 
difference  was  not  one  of  race  or  blood.  The 
new  Northwest  has  very  largely  come  out  of  the 


48     WHERE   ROLLS   THE   OREGON 

older  East,  the  same  blood  there  as  here;  but  a 
different  spirit.  Spirit  is  an  elastic  thing;  and  if 
we  had  the  spaciousness  of  that  western  country, 
we  should  doubtless  have  the  soul  to  fill  it,  as  the 
little  town  of  Burns  fills  it  for  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  of  sage,  whichever  way  you  go. 

We  were  "  going  in  "  from  Bend,  over  the  High 
Desert.  We  were  to  speak  to  the  Rod  and  Gun 
Club  of  Burns.  We  were  to  visit  the  great  Mal- 
heur  Lake  Reservation  just  south  of  Burns,  and 
the  vast  wild  lands  of  the  Steins  Mountains  on 
farther  south,  which  the  State  has  since  turned 
into  a  wild  animal  reservation.  We  were  also 
bringing  in  with  us  a  carload  of  young  trout 
to  stock  the  Silvies  River  and  the  creeks  about 
Burns. 

Our  telegram  had  gone  around  by  Baker  City, 
Sumpter,  and  Canon  City  ;  thence  had  been 
relayed  by  telephone  to  Burns ;  our  carload  of 
fingerling  trout  was  to  follow  us  by  auto-truck 
from  Bend  over  the  desert;  and  we — the  July 
morning  found  us  heading  over  an  horizon  of 
gray  sage  into  the  sunrise,  the  purplish  pine  stems 
of  the  Deschutes  Forest  Reservation  far  to  south 
and  west  of  us,  and  over  them,  in  the  far  north- 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         49 

west,  the  snowy  peaks  of  Jefferson  and  the  Three 
Sisters. 

There  was  nothing  else  to  be  seen ;  not  at  this 
point,  that  is,  for  we  were  but  just  starting,  and 
were  using  all  our  eyes  to  hang  on  with. 

I  had  never  ridden  from  Bend  to  Burns  by 
auto-stage  before,  and  I  did  not  realize  at  first  that 
you  could  hold  yourself  down  by  merely  anchor- 
ing your  feet  under  the  rail  and  gripping  every- 
thing in  sight.  It  is  a  simple  matter  of  using  all 
your  hands  and  knees  and  feet.  But  at  the  start 
I  was  wasting  my  strength,  as,  with  eyes  fixed 
and  jaw  set,  I  even  held  on  to  my  breath  in  order 
to  keep  up  with  the  car. 

The  desert  was  entirely  new  to  me ;  so  was  the 
desert  automobile.  I  had  been  looking  forward 
eagerly  to  this  first  sight  of  the  sage  plains ;  but 
I  had  not  expected  the  automobile,  and  could  see 
nothing  whatever  of  the  sagebrush  until  I  had 
learned  to  ride  the  car.  I  had  ridden  an  automo- 
bile before;  I  had  driven  one,  a  staid  and  even- 
going  Eastern  car,  which  I  had  left  at  home  in  the 
stable.  I  thought  I  knew  an  automobile;  but  I 
found  that  I  had  never  been  on  one  of  the  Western 
desert  breed.  The  best  backer  at  the  Pendleton 


50     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

Round-up  is  but  a  rocking-horse  in  comparison. 
I  doubt  if  you  could  experience  death  in  any  part 
of  the  world  more  times  for  twenty  dollars  than 
by  auto-stage  from  Bend  to  Burns. 

The  trail  takes  account  of  every  possible  bunch 
of  sagebrush  and  greasewood  to  be  met  with  on 
the  way.  It  never  goes  over  a  bunch  if  it  can  go 
around  a  bunch ;  and  as  there  is  nothing  but 
bunches  all  the  way,  the  road  is  very  devious.  It 
turns,  here  and  there,  every  four  or  five  feet  (per- 
haps the  sagebrush  clumps  average  five  feet 
apart),  and  it  has  a  habit,  too,  whenever  it  sees 
the  homesteader's  wire  fences,  of  dashing  for  them, 
down  one  side  of  the  claim,  then  short  about  the 
corner  and  down  the  other  side  of  the  claim, 
steering  clear  of  all  the  clumps  of  sage,  but  rip- 
ping along  horribly  near  to  the  sizzling  barbs  of 
the  wire  and  the  untrimmed  stubs  on  the  juniper 
posts;  then  darting  off  into  the  brush,  this  way, 
that  way,  every  way,  which  in  the  end  proves  to 
be  the  way  to  Burns,  but  no  one  at  the  beginning 
of  the  trip  could  believe  it  —  no  one  from  the 
East,  I  mean. 

The  utter  nowhereness  of  that  desert  trail !  Of 
its  very  start  and  finish !  I  had  been  used  to  start- 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         51 

ing  from  Hingham  and  arriving — and  I  am  two 
whole  miles  from  the  station  at  that.  Here  at 
Mullein  Hill  I  can  see  South,  East,  and  North 
Weymouth,  plain  Weymouth,  and  Weymouth 
Heights,  with  Queen  Anne's  Corner  only  a  mile 
away;  Hanover  Four  Corners,  Assinippi,  Egypt, 
Cohasset,  and  Nantasket  are  hardly  five  miles 
off;  and  Boston  itself  is  but  sixty  minutes  distant 
by  automobile,  Eastern  time. 

It  is  not  so  between  Bend  and  Burns.  Time 
and  space  are  different  concepts  there.  Here  in 
Hingham  you  are  never  without  the  impression 
of  somewhere.  If  you  stop  you  are  in  Hingham ; 
if  you  go  on  you  are  in  Cohasset,  perhaps.  You 
are  somewhere  always.  But  between  Bend  and 
Burns  you  are  always  in  the  sagebrush  and  right 
on  the  distant  edge  of  time  and  space,  which 
seems  by  contrast  with  Hingham  the  very  mid- 
dle of  nowhere.  Massachusetts  time  and  space,  and 
doubtless  European  time  and  space,  as  Kant  and 
Schopenhauer  maintained,  are  not  world  elements 
independent  of  myself,  at  all,  but  only  a  priori 
forms  of  perceiving.  That  will  not  do  from  Bend 
to  Burns.  They  are  independent  things  out  there. 
You  can  whittle  them  and  shovel  them.  They 


52     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

are  sagebrush  and  sand,  respectively.  Nor  do  they 
function  there  as  here  in  the  East,  determining, 
according  to  the  metaphysicians,  the  sequence 
of  conditions,  and  positions  of  objects  toward  each 
other ;  for  the  desert  will  not  admit  of  it.  The 
Vedanta  well  describes  "  the-thing-in-itself "  be- 
tween Bend  and  Burns  in  what  it  says  of  Brah- 
man :  that  "  it  is  not  split  by  time  and  space  and 
is  free  from  all  change." 

That,  however,  does  not  describe  the  journey; 
there  was  plenty  of  change  in  that,  at  the  rate  we 
went,  and  according  to  the  exceeding  great  num- 
ber of  sagebushes  we  passed.  It  was  all  change ; 
though  all  sage.  We  never  really  tarried  by  the 
side  of  any  sagebush.  It  was  impossible  to  do 
that  and  keep  the  car  shying  rhythmically  —  now 
on  its  two  right  wheels,  now  on  its  two  left  wheels 
— past  the  sagebush  next  ahead.  Not  the  journey, 
I  say ;  it  is  only  the  concept,  the  impression  of  the 
journey,  that  can  be  likened  to  Brahman.  But  that 
single,  unmitigated  impression  of  sage  and  sand, 
of  nowhereness,  was  so  entirely  unlike  all  former 
impressions  that  I  am  glad  I  made  the  journey 
from  Boston  in  order  to  go  from  Bend  to  Burns. 

You  lose  no  time  getting  at  the  impression.  It 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS          53 

begins  in  Bend  —  long  before,  indeed,  being  dis- 
tributed generally  all  over  this  Oregon  country. 
At  Bend  the  railroad  terminates.  The  only  thing 
you  can  do  at  Bend  is  to  go  back,  —  unless  you 
are  bound  for  Burns.  The  impression  does  not 
begin  at  Bend,  and  it  does  not  end  at  Burns.  It 
only  deepens.  For  at  Burns  there  is  not  so  much 
as  a  railroad  terminus.  You  cannot  go  back  from 
Burns,  or  "out,"  as  the  citizens  say,  until  there  are 
enough  of  your  mind  to  charter  the  auto-stage. 
The  next  railroad  terminus  to  Burns  is  at  Vale, 
east-northeast  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles 
of  sage  beyond. 

Not  split  by  time  and  space,  and  free  from  all 
change,  single,  deep,  indelible,  gray  is  the  desert 
from  Bend  to  Burns. 

It  was  7.10  in  the  morning  when  we  started 
from  Bend,  it  was  after  eight  in  the  evening  when 
we  swung  into  Burns.  At  noon  we  halted  for  din- 
ner at  a  rude  road-house,  half  of  the  journey  done ; 
at  one  o'clock  we  started  on  with  a  half  of  it  yet 
to  go  —  at  the  same  pace,  over  the  same  trail, 
through  the  same  dust  and  sun  and  sage,  the 
other  car  of  our  party,  that  had  followed  us  so  far, 
now  taking  the  lead.  There  were  details  enough, 


54     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

there  was  variety  enough,  had  one  but  the  time 
and  the  eyes  to  see.  I  had  neither.  This  was  my 
first  day  in  the  desert;  and  it  was  the  desert  that 
I  wanted  to  traverse  —  it  was  the  sage  and  the 
sand,  the  roll,  the  reach  to  the  horizon,  the  gray, 
sage  gray,  that  I  had  come  out  to  see.  I  must 
travel  swift  and  look  far  off.  For  you  cannot 
compass  the  desert  horizon  at  a  glance.  Nor  can 
you  see  at  a  glance  this  desert  gray;  it  is  so  low 
a  tone,  a  color  so  hard  to  fix.  I  must  see  sage 
gray  until  it  should  dye  the  very  grain  of  my 
imagination,  as  the  bitter  flavor  of  the  sage  stains 
the  blood,  and  tastes  in  the  very  flesh  of  sage  hen. 
A  day  was  not  long  enough ;  one  hundred  and 
fifty  speeding  miles  could  not  carry  me  fast 
enough  or  far  enough  to  see  the  desert.  And  if  I 
should  stop  to  look  for  the  desert  life,  for  the 
parts,  I  should  miss  the  whole.  But  I  had  my 
hand  instinctively  upon  the  driver's  arm  when  a 
sage  sparrow  darted  in  front  of  the  car.  It  was 
a  new  bird  to  me.  Then  a  sage  thrasher  flitted 
away  and  alighted  as  the  car  sped  past  —  another 
new  bird!  A  badger  drew  into  its  burrow —  I  had 
never  seen  the  badger  at  home ;  a  lizard,  a  small 
horned-toad,  a  gray-and-yellow- winged  grasshop- 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS          55 

per,  a  picket-pin  —  two — three  of  them — all  new, 
all  children  of  the  desert !  A  little  shrike,  a  cluster 
of  squat  golden-balled  flowers,  a  patch  of  purple 
things  close  to  the  sand  giving  a  drop  of  color  to 
the  stretch  of  gray,  a  slender  striped  chipmunk, 
a  small  brown  owl  dangling  between  the  sage 
clumps,  and  calling  like  a  flicker,  another  at  the 
mouth  of  an  old  badger's  den  —  the  burrowing 
owl,  to  be  sure,  and  the  first  I  have  ever  seen! 
Whir-r-r-r-r  —  the  great  sage  hen !  and  my  hand 
shot  out  again — this  time  at  the  steering-wheel 
The  driver  only  grunted,  and  opened  the  throttle 
a  little  wider  if  anything.  He  was  not  after  sage 
hens;  he  was  on  the  road  to  Burns. 

If  only  he  would  blow  out  a  tire!  He  did 
break  a  rear  axle  later  on  in  the  afternoon,  and  to 
my  amazement  and  chagrin  pulled  a  spare  one 
out  of  his  toolbox,  and  had  it  on  as  if  it  were  part 
of  the  programme.  But  he  gave  me  a  chance  to 
start  my  first  jack  rabbit  and  send  him  careening 
over  the  plain.  I  crept  up  on  a  Western  night- 
hawk,  too;  I  gathered  the  most  glorious  of 
American  primroses,  white  and  as  large  as  a 
morning-glory,  but  an  almost  stemless  flower  like 
most  of  the  desert  plants.  I  snatched  and  threw 


56     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

into  the  car  eight  other  new  species  of  desert 
flowers ;  nibbled  a  leaf  of  the  sage  and  some  of 
the  salty  shad-scale ;  picked  up  a  large  fragment 
of  black  obsidian,  and  beside  it  a  broken  Indian 
arrowhead  of  the  same  lava  glass;  saw  where  a 
coyote  had  been  digging  out  picket-pins ;  and 
was  trying  to  capture  a  scorpion  when  the  mended 
car  overtook  me  —  and  on  through  the  sage  we 
rolled. 

Another  stop  like  this  and  my  desert  would  be 
lost.  One  cannot  watch  a  desert.  But  one  can 
watch  a  scorpion ;  and  to  leave  the  only  live  scor- 
pion I  had  ever  seen  was  hard.  As  we  whirled  past 
a  camping  freighter,  his  horses  outspanned  in  the 
sun,  I  envied  him  the  ten  days  he  was  taking  to 
cover  what  I  was  being  hurled  across  in  one.  To 
freight  it  across  the  High  Desert!  To  feel  the 
beating  sun  at  midday,  and  at  midnight  the  bite 
of  the  frost !  To  waken  in  the  unspeakable  fresh- 
ness of  the  cold  dawn  to  the  singing  of  the  sage 
thrasher;  and  at  twilight,  the  long  desert  twilight, 
to  watch  the  life  of  the  silent  plains  awaken,  to 
hear  the  quaking  call  of  the  burrowing  owls,  and 
far  off  through  the  shadows  the  cry  of  the  prowl- 
ing coyotes  I 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS          57 

If  something  else  would  happen  to  the  car  — 
something  serious  —  all  four  axles  at  once!  But 
it  was  not  to  be.  We  were  destined  to  sleep  in 
Burns  —  a  restless  sleep,  however.  I  would  much 
rather  take  my  chances  next  time  with  the  occa- 
sional scorpion  in  the  sage.  We  were  due  in 
Burns  that  night.  We  were  to  speak  to  the  Rod 
and  Gun  Club.  We  were  to  tell  them  that  the 
carload  of  young  fish  would  be  on  the  road  by 
midnight,  that  we  had  seen  the  truck  at  Bend ; 
that  they  could  expect  the  fish  surely  by  evening 
of  the  next  day. 

On  we  sped  into  the  sage,  on  into  the  length- 
ening afternoon ;  the  scattered  juniper  trees, 
sti«ngely  like  orchard  trees  at  a  distance,  becom- 
ing more  numerous,  the  level  stretches  more  va- 
ried and  broken,  with  here  and  there  a  cone-like 
peak  appearing — Glass  Buttes  to  the  south,  Buck 
Mountain  to  the  north,  with  Wagon  Tire  and  Iron 
Mountains  farther  off.  Early  in  the  forenoon  we 
had  passed  several  homesteaders'  claims,  spots 
of  desolation  in  the  desert,  and  now,  as  the  after- 
noon wore  on,  the  lonely  settler's  shack  and  wire 
fence  began  to  appear  again. 

I  have  seen  many  sorts  of  desperation,  but  none 


58     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

like  that  of  the  men  who  attempt  to  make  a  home 
out  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres  of  High 
Desert  sage.  For  this  is  so  much  more  than  they 
need.  Three  feet  by  six  is  land  enough  —  and 
then  there  were  no  need  of  wire  for  a  fence,  or 
of  a  well  for  water.  Going  down  to  the  sea  in  ships 
or  into  mines  by  a  lift,  are  none  too  high  prices  to 
pay  for  life ;  but  going  out  on  the  desert  with  a 
government  claim,  with  the  necessary  plough,  the 
necessary  fence,  the  necessary  years  of  residence, 
and  other  things  made  necessary  by  law,  to  say 
nothing  of  those  required  by  nature  and  marriage, 
is  to  pay  all  too  dearly  for  death,  and  to  make 
of  one's  funeral  a  needlessly  desolate  thing.  A  man 
ploughing  the  sage  —  his  woman  keeping  the 
shack  —  a  patch  of  dust  against  the  dust,  a 
shadow  within  a  shadow  —  sage  and  sand  and 
space ! 

We  were  nearing  Silver  Creek,  some  forty 
miles,  perhaps,  from  Burns,  when  ahead,  and  off 
to  the  right  of  us  rose  a  little  cloud  of  dust.  I 
watched  it  with  interest,  wondering  what  it  might 
be,  until  through  the  brush  I  made  out  a  horse- 
man galloping  hard  to  intercept  us,  as  I  thought. 
I  could  not  reach  ahead  with  my  eye  to  the 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         59 

windings  of  our  narrow  road,  but  unless  we  made 
in  his  direction  we  should  leave  him  far  in  the 
rear.  He  had  measured  the  distance,  too,  for  I  saw 
him  bend  in  the  saddle  and  the  horse  sink  deeper 
into  the  sage  as  it  lay  down  to  the  race.  He  was  go- 
ing to  miss  us  surely,  for  we  were  driving  like  the 
wind.  Then  he  snatched  off  his  sombrero,  waved 
it  over  his  head,  pulled  hard  right  to  take  us  far- 
ther down  on  a  curve,  and  sent  his  horse  at  a 
dead  run  over  a  ridge  of  lava  stones,  a  run  to 
rob  the  rest  of  my  automobile  journey  of  all  its 
terrors. 

Our  car  slowed  down,  as  the  rider,  a  cowboy, 
lurched  into  the  road. 

"I've  a  dying  man  in  here  — "  he  began, 
jerking  his  hand  toward  a  shanty  off  in  the  sage. 
"Will  you  take  him  to  the  doctor  in  Burns?" 

The  driver  did  not  open  his  mouth,  but  turned 
and  looked  at  us.  The  car  was  crowded ;  both 
running-boards  were  piled  with  traps  and  lug- 
gage. 

"  He 's  dying  of  appendicitis,"  said  the  horse- 
man. "An  operation  to-night  might  save  him." 

The  gray  of  the  evening  had  already  spread 
over  the  desert,  and  at  the  ominous  words  it  dark- 


60    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

ened  till  it  touched  the  sage  with  a  loneliness 
that  was  profound. 

One  of  us  would  have  to  get  off  in  the  sage 
and  give  the  dying  man  a  place,  and  I,  for  every 
reason,  was  the  one  to  do  it.  Must  I  confess  that 
something  like  fear  of  that  far-circling  horizon, 
of  the  deep  silence,  of  the  pall  of  gray  sage  and 
shadow  took  hold  upon  me!  Dying?  A  man  — 
yonder  —  alone  ? 

Just  then  the  second  car,  which  we  had  passed 
some  distance  back,  came  up,  and  a  long,  lean 
man  in  a  linen  duster,  who  had  eaten  with  me  at 
the  road-house,  hearing  the  story,  hurried  with  us 
over  to  the  shack. 

"  I  'm  a  doctor,"  he  said,  leaving  me  unstrap- 
ping some  luggage  on  the  car,  as  he  entered  the 
door.  He  was  out  again  in  a  minute. 

"  On  the  wrong  side.  Bad  strain  in  the  groin, 
that 's  all.  He  Jll  soon  be  in  the  saddle,"  —  and 
we  were  racing  on  toward  Burns,  the  purring  of 
the  engine  now  a  song  of  distances,  of  wide 
slumbering  plains  of  sage  and  sand,  and,  over- 
head, of  waking  stars. 

The  long  desert  dusk  still  lingered,  but  lights 
were  twinkling  as  we  slowed  through  the  last 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         61 

sandy  ruts  into  the  main  street  of  Burns.  We 
were  met  by  the  local  game  wardens  and  by 
some  of  the  citizens  of  the  town.  Our  talk  was 
for  to-morrow,  Saturday,  night.  There  was  a 
"Booster  Meeting"  on  for  to-night.  The  next 
day  I  picked  up  on  the  street  a  little  flyer. 

TONIGHT 

TONAWAMA   THEATRE 

'The  Harney  County  Rod  and  Gun  Club 

Invites  their  friends  to  meet  with 
them  at  Tonawama  Hall  tonight  at 
8.30  to  listen  to  a  talk  by  State 
Game  Warden  W.  L.  Finley,  who 
is  accompanied  here  by  Prof.  Dallas 
Lor  Sharp.  A  special  invitation  is 
extended  to  the  ladies. 


Watch  For  Big  Balloon  Ascension  Wednesday 

The  ladies  came ;  the  children,  too.  Not  all  of 
the  thousand  souls  of  Burns  were  out,  for  they  had 
had  the  "Booster  Meeting"  the  night  before; 
but  there  was  a  considerable  part  of  them  out,  to 
hear  of  the  fish,  the  thirty  thousand  trout  fry  which 


62     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

were  coming  over  the  desert  at  the  town's  expense 
to  stock  the  Silvies  River  and  the  creeks  about 
Burns.  I  say  at  the  town's  expense ;  at  the  ex- 
pense, rather,  of  the  Rod  and  Gun  Club.  But 
everybody  belonged  to  the  Rod  and  Gun  Club. 
We  had  telegraphed  our  coming,  and  the  gift 
of  the  fish,  if  the  town  would  freight  them  in. 
The  citizens  got  themselves  together,  raised  the 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars,  sent  one  of 
their  men  out  with  a  five-ton  truck  to  meet  us  at 
Bend.  But  the  fish  train  was  delayed,  and  we  had 
come  on  ahead,  leaving  the  truck  to  follow  when 
the  fish  should  get  in.  By  this  time,  however, 
they  should  have  been  in  Burns. 

Yes,  we  had  seen  their  man.  He  had  come 
through  to  Bend.  And  the  fish  *?  They  had  been 
sidetracked  at  The  Dalles,  but  were  on  the  road  — 
had  arrived  at  Bend,  no  doubt,  at  9.45  last  night, 
and  must  be  now  nearly  in.  Yes  —  they  could 
certainly  expect  them  by  early  morning,  barring 
accidents — a  fine  lot  of  fingerlings,  rainbows, 
silversides,  and  Eastern  brook  trout  —  forty  cans 
of  them! 

It  was  an  enthusiastic  meeting  in  spite  of  the 
aired  grievances  of  many  of  the  Club  against  the 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         63 

tightening  game  laws,  for  which  the  warden  was 
largely  responsible.  Enthusiastic,  and  decidedly 
enlightened  too,  it  seemed  to  me,  by  the  time  it 
closed,  and  the  warden  had  had  a  chance  to  ex- 
plain the  meaning  of  the  relations  between  the 
sportsman,  the  game,  and  the  State,  and  to  en- 
force his  points  with  that  great  load  of  young  fish 
coming  yonder  over  the  desert. 

"Finley,"  said  I,  after  the  meeting,  "it's  a  long 
haul  for  fish." 

"So  it  is,"  he  replied. 

"  Suppose  they  don't  arrive  in  good  shape  *?  " 

44 1  was  thinking  of  that ;  the  long  stop  at  The 
Dalles,  to  begin  with ;  then  this  desert !  They 
were  shipped  from  the  hatchery  Friday.  To-mor- 
row Js  Sunday.  They  '11  never  make  it ! " 

We  said  no  more.  There  was  a  good  deal  at 
stake  for  the  game  warden  in  this  little  town  of 
Burns,  the  center  of  influence  over  a  wider  and  a 
richer  game  country  than  can  be  found,  I  believe, 
anywhere  else  in  the  United  States,  fed  as  it  is 
by  the  great  Malheur  Lake  Reservation  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Silvies,  a  few  miles  below. 

At  twelve  o'clock  that  night  I  looked  out  into 
the  sky.  The  stars  were  shining  in  the  clear  dark, 


64     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

and  a  strong  wind  was  blowing  cold  from  the 
desert.  The  truck  had  doubtless  been  on  the 
road  now  for  twenty-four  hours.  Where  was  it 
with  its  living  freight,  its  forty  cans  of  young 
fish,  its  two  wardens,  dipping,  dipping  all  day,  all 
night,  to  aerate  the  water  and  keep  the  fry  alive  *? 
Those  men  had  had  no  sleep  all  Friday  night, 
none  all  day  Saturday;  they  would  get  none  to- 
night— all  night.  And  the  driver,  the  dusty, 
shock-headed  driver  who  had  met  us  at  Bend  ! 
What  did  it  mean  to  drive  that  heavy  truck,  with 
its  perishing  load,  at  top  speed,  without  relief  or 
sleep,  over  the  tortuous  trail  and  pulling  sands 
of  the  High  Desert  clear  to  Burns!  And  all  for  a 
few  thousand  fish !  They  had  been  on  the  road 
for  twenty-four  hours.  Should  they  arrive  before 
morning  there  still  could  be  no  rest  for  the  war- 
dens, who  must  go  from  can  to  can  dipping,  dip- 
ping, dipping,  till  the  fish  were  put  into  the 
streams ! 

It  was  the  dead  of  night,  and  away  yonder, 
miles  and  miles  over  the  starlit  plain  they  were 
coming,  a  driver  and  a  pounding  engine  fighting 
every  dragging  foot  of  the  way,  and  two  ex- 
hausted wardens  fighting  every  dragging  minute 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         65 

of  the  time  for  the  freight  in  their  care !  Moving 
among  the  crowded  cans  in  the  lurching,  plung- 
ing car,  they  were  dipping  with  one  hand,  hold- 
ing hard  with  the  numbed  fingers  of  the  other, 
the  desert  wind  piercing  them  and,  at  midnight, 
freezing  their  fingers  to  the  metal,  and  coating 
them  with  ice  as  the  water  slopped  and  splashed 
upon  their  clothes.  And  this  in  July ! 

It  was  a  cruel  haul.  But  it  is  the  Western  way; 
and  it  is  all  in  the  day's  work. 

At  six  o'clock  the  next  morning,  Sunday,  we 
scanned  the  sagebrush  to  the  west  for  a  sign  of 
the  coming  car.  There  was  no  cloud  of  dust  on 
the  horizon.  None  at  eight  o'clock.  None  at  ten. 
Noon  came  and  went.  Little  groups  of  men 
gathered  at  the  corners  of  the  street  or  wandered 
in  to  talk  with  us  at  the  "  hotel."  Buckboards 
and  automobiles  from  distant  ranches  were  wait- 
ing at  the  garage  to  take  a  can,  or  two  cans,  up 
and  down  the  river  twenty,  thirty,  forty  miles 
away,  when  the  truck  should  get  in.  The  street 
was  full  of  people — picturesque  people,  pure 
Americans  all  of  them  —  "  riders,"  homesteaders, 
ranchers,  townspeople,  waiting  for  the  fish-car. 
The  local  baseball  nines  announced  a  game ;  the 


66     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

local  band  came  out  to  escort  them  to  the  grounds, 
and,  to  the  tune  of  "  There  '11  be  a  Hot  Time  in 
the  Old  Town  To-night,"  went  down  to  the  field 
to  play  until  the  car  should  come. 

Four  o'clock.  I  had  ceased  to  look  or  care. 
My  one  hope  now  was  that  the  car  would  not 
get  in,  that  it  was  a  total  wreck  somewhere  in  the 
hopeless  sagebrush  of  Crook  County,  where  the 
road,  I  remembered,  was  next  to  impassable.  They 
had  mercifully  had  a  break-down,  I  was  thinking, 
when  there  came  a  clatter  of  hoofs,  a  yelping  of 
dogs,  a  shout,  a  loud  c bug-chugging,  and  up  to  the 
hotel  steps  ground  the  truck,  as  grim  an  outfit  as 
ever  pulled  in  from  a  desert. 

With  the  town  a-trailing,  the  car  went  on  to 
the  garage,  where  the  water  was  quickly  changed 
and  iced  down,  the  ranchers  given  their  allot- 
ments of  the  young  fish,  and  the  unclaimed  cans 
reloaded  and  hurried  out  to  the  nearest  running 
stream. 

But  it  was  too  late.  I  emptied  the  first  can,  and 
a  little  swirl  of  tiny  whitish  fish  curled  into  an 
eddy  and  sank  slowly  to  the  bottom.  One  of 
them  darted  away — another  keeled,  curved  out 
on  its  side,  gasped,  gulped  the  water,  snapped 


FROM  BEND  TO  BURNS         67 

himself  into  life  at  the  taste,  and  swam  weakly 
off — two  out  of  eight  hundred!  It  was  so  with 
every  can. 

We  went  back  to  the  hotel.  The  driver  of  the 
truck,  his  clothes,  hair,  and  skin  caked  with  dust, 
his  eyes  bloodshot,  and  fearful  exhaustion  fastened 
upon  his  drawn  face,  dropped  almost  through  my 
arms  to  a  box  on  the  sidewalk. 

"Damn  it!"  he  muttered,  more  to  himself 
than  to  me,  his  arms  limp,  his  head  upon  his 
knees,  "they  can  pay  me  for  the  gas,  and  that's 
all  they  shall  do." 

But  he  got  his  pay  for  his  time  also.  The  game 
warden  called  the  Rod  and  Gun  Club  together 
that  night,  and  handed  them  back  a  hundred  dol- 
lars, saying  the  State  would  foot  the  bill  this  time. 
"You  take  the  money,"  said  he,  "and  we  will 
build  some  hatching  troughs  in  Gary  Garden 
Creek  with  it  to-morrow.  I've  telegraphed  for 
fifty  thousand  trout  eggs  in  the  eyed  stage — you 
can  ship  them  in  that  stage  round  the  world  — 
and  a  warden  to  come  with  them  to  show  you 
how  they  are  hatched  and  planted.  We  will  stock 
Silvies  River  and  every  stream  about  Burns,  and 
do  it  now." 


68     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

And  so  they  did.  In  true  Western  style  they 
started  that  hatchery  the  next  day,  and  before  the 
week  had  passed  the  work  was  done,  the  eggs 
were  on  the  way,  every  man  in  the  town  inter- 
ested, and  every  man  won  over  to  the  side  of  the 
State  in  its  fight  for  game  protection  and  honest 
sport. 

It  is  a  great  country,  that  Oregon  country,  as 
any  one  will  say  who  makes  the  trip  from  Bend 
to  Burns. 


IV 

THE   SHADOW    OF   THE   DESERT 


IV 


THE   SHADOW   OF   THE   DESERT 

SAW  the  desert  on  the  trip  from 
Bend  to  Burns ;  I  had  some  chance 
to  watch  it  in  the  days  that  fol- 
lowed, as  again  by  automobile  we 
pushed  far  out  over  the  gray  wastes. 
We  were  bound  for  Silver  Lake,  off  about 
thirty  miles  in  the  sage,  where  the  wardens  had 
discovered  a  small  colony  of  American  egrets 
(Herodias  egret  to).  As  we  left  the  signs  of  trail 
and  travel  behind  us  and  headed  straight  into  the 
desert,  I  saw  that  we  were  in  a  wilder,  barrener 
section  than  any  we  had  crossed  on  coming  in 
from  Bend.  We  were  making  the  trip  for  white 
herons  —  egrets  —  but  I  began  to  feel  coyotes 
about  me  in  the  sand  and  brush.  I  cannot  explain 
just  what  the  feeling  of  coyotes  is,  but  I  am  sure 
you  would  have  it  out  on  the  caked  and  crusty 
sand  near  Silver  Lake.  Everything  said  wolf  as 
we  sped  silently  along  through  the  spaces  of  the 
sage.  The  lean,  wide  desert  looked  wolf.  The 


72     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

deep  silence  spelled  wolf.  The  black-tailed  jacks 
jumped  wolf  as  they  flashed  from  the  jaws  of 
our  own  stalking  car.  And  they  ran  as  from 
wolves,  when,  over  a  smooth  alkali  bottom,  we 
pushed  up  the  throttle  and  sent  the  swift-footed 
machine  hard  at  their  heels.  But  it  was  the  air, 
the  aspect  of  things,  rather,  the  sense  of  indescrib- 
able remoteness,  withdrawal,  and  secrecy  ever  re- 
treating before  us,  that  seemed  to  take  on  form  as 
something  watchful,  suspicious,  inherently  wild, 
something  wolf-like.  This  was  the  wildest  stretch 
of  land,  the  most  alien,  that  I  had  ever  seen,  and 
it  must  be  here,  if  anywhere  in  the  Northwest, 
that  I  should  see  the  coyote,  the  desert  wolf. 

And  I  could  see  one,  if  anybody  could,  for  I  had 
the  help  of  all  the  imagination  necessary.  I  had 
grown  up  on  wolves — book  wolves.  How  many 
scores  of  times  have  I  been  treed  by  them  !  How 
many  more  than  scores  of  times  have  I  been 
forced  to  cut  loose  my  lead-horse  for  the  pack  to  fall 
upon,  while  I  galloped  ahead  through  the  snowy 
forest  toward  the  settlement!  The  homesteader 
and  the  trapper  have  had  small  wolf  experience 
compared  with  mine.  For  night  after  night  I  have 
heard  the  curdling  cry  of  the  pack,  have  been 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    73 

driven  deep  down  under  the  covers  of  the  bed, 
as  the  north  wind  went  howling  through  the  stiff 
pines  outside  my  window,  or  some  neighbor's 
dog  sat  baying  at  the  moon. 

It  matters  little  what  happens  to  a  boy  after  he 
has  finished  "  Robinson  Crusoe  "  and  closed  the 
covers  of  "Bad  Lands  Bill;  or,  The  Bucket  oi 
Blood."  It  is  too  late  for  wolves  after  that.  After 
that  he  might  be  eaten  alive  by  wolves  without 
knowing  what  was  rending  him.  Years,  growth, 
knowledge,  experience  —  what  is  it  all  but  the 
soul  of  childhood  being  clothed  upon  with  clay  *? 
—  the  lolling,  panting  wolf-pack  through  the 
timbered  bottoms  of  the  imagination  taking  shape 
as  a  slinking  coyote  in  the  greasewood  of  the 
desert?  Blessed  is  the  man  who  had  packs  of 
wolves  after  him  as  a  child,  for  his  coyotes  will 
never  become  jackals  and  foxes,  and  if  there  is  a 
coyote  in  the  desert  he  shall  see  a  wolf! 

But  any  one  might  see  a  coyote  here.  The  crea- 
ture's tracks  were  plain  in  the  sand.  He  lurked  be- 
hind every  rise  we  topped,  in  every  gully  we  cut, 
beyond  every  flat  we  crossed.  By  and  by  we 
fled  through  the  caked  and  cracked  bottom  of 
some  evaporated  alkali  lake,  rounded  a  low  rim 


74     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

rock  into  a  green  meadow,  or  coulee,  and  sighted 
the  dull  dead  water  of  Silver  Lake  with  its  scalded 
shores  bare  and  bleaching  in  the  sun.  A  low  edg- 
ing of  rock,  the  broken  footings  of  a  wall,  ran 
around  the  shallow  basin  like  a  rude  beading 
about  some  vast  pewter  salver.  The  thick  water 
was  rapidly  shrinking.  Off  in  the  middle  lay 
an  island  about  a  hundred  acres  in  extent,  at 
one  end  of  which,  on  the  surface  of  the  lake, 
rested  a  great  flock  of  white  pelicans,  and  gleam- 
ing like  flecks  of  snow  against  the  green  willow 
copse  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  island  perched 
a  few  white  herons.  The  warden  stood  speech- 
less at  the  sight  of  snow-white  birds  in  the  wil- 
lows—  they  had  been  so  nearly  exterminated  by 
the  plumers,  —  and  his  wonder  fell  upon  us  all. 
We  had  left  the  car  behind  the  wall  of  rock, 
allowing,  for  the  first  time,  the  absolute  silence 
of  the  desert  noon  to  come  upon  us.  It  was  a  new 
kind  of  silence  to  me,  as  utterly  unlike  any  that  I 
knew  as  the -desert  itself  was  unlike  any  stretch 
of  my  native  landscape.  One  knows  his  silences 
as  well,  and  listens  as  often  to  them,  as  one 
knows  the  voices  of  his  birds,  or  the  sounding 
tongues  of  stream,  or  storm,  or  forest,  or  shore. 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    75 

Take  the  three  familiar  silences  of  winter :  the 
sudden  hush  that  falls  at  twilight  on  the  coming 
of  the  first  frost;  the  breathless  suspense,  full 
of  foreboding,  that  awaits  the  breaking  of  a  winter 
storm;  the  crystal  stillness  —  that  speech  of  the 
stars — pervading  earth  and  sky  on  a  brilliant 
frosty  night !  These  all  differ  from  the  summer 
silences,  as  even  the  drowsy  quiet  of  an  August 
noon  over  my  Eastern  fields  differed  from  this 
dearth,  this  death  of  sound  here  in  the  desert, 
where  the  taut  silence  seemed  drawn  like  shrunken 
skin  over  the  bones  of  the  sand  and  sage. 

As  we  picked  our  way  across  the  broken  rock 
about  the  shore,  a  rattlesnake  made  the  silence 
shiver;  an  avocet  flew  up  with  a  note  of  woe, 
and  then  ail  was  still  again,  the  bones  of  cattle 
which  lay  scattered  over  the  shallow  valley  quite 
as  capable  of  stirring  as  any  living  thing  in  sight. 
Yet  there  was  something  stirring  —  yonder —  a 
gray-brown  shadow,  far  off  on  the  alkali  crust,  a 
loping,  backward-looking  figure  which  halts  at 
the  edge  of  the  brush,  then  leaps  the  rocky  rim 
and  is  lost  —  the  coyote ! 

I  stood  staring  after  him  when  the  automobile, 
having  also  climbed  the  rocks,  came  up  and 


76     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

whirled  us  over  the  flats  to  the  distant  side  of 
the  lake,  where  we  were  going  to  wade  across  to 
the  egret  colony  on  the  island.  I  was  soon  in  the 
water,  stepping  in  the  prints  of  the  coyote  which 
plainly  showed  beneath  the  surface,  deep  in  the 
elastic,  cement-like  mud,  and  which  led  straight 
for  the  colony  of  the  egrets.  I  was  about  halfway 
over,  when  a  pistol  shot  rang  out  behind  me  and 
I  turned  in  my  tracks  to  see  a  coyote  scurrying 
away  from  the  automobile  on  three  legs. 

Doubtless  it  was  the  one  that  only  a  few  min- 
utes before  I  had  seen  disappearing  in  the  sage 
and  rabbit-brush  a  mile  away.  He  had  followed 
us,  had  seen  us  well  into  the  lake,  and,  thinking 
we  all  were  gone,  had  trotted  boldly  out  to  in- 
spect the  car,  the  first  automobile,  I  imagine,  to 
penetrate  to  this  desert  haunt  of  his.  But  our 
driver  was  lying  in  the  shade  beneath,  the  car, 
watching,  and  when  the  coyote  came  within  easy 
range,  fired  at  him,  breaking  his  fore  paw  evi- 
dently, by  the  way  it  dangled  as  the  poor  beast 
spun  about  and  dashed  for  the  rocks.  4 

He  was  a  wolf,  to  be  sure ;  but  a  wolf,  if  not  an 
earth-born  companion,  is  at  least  a  fellow-mortal  ; 
and  I  turned  again  to  following  the  clean,  sharp 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    77 

footprints  in  the  ooze,  sorry  for  the  dangling  paw. 
It  made  no  difference  that  the  tracks  led  straight 
to  the  precious  egret  rookery,  where  they  showed 
clearly  enough  what  a  scourge  to  the  desert  bird- 
life  the  creature  must  be.  Lodged  in  a  part  of  the 
willows  was  the  body  of  a  night  heron,  and  un- 
derneath a  great  trampling  of  tracks.  The  carcass 
hung  just  out  of  the  wolf's  reach.  A  hundred 
times  he  had  leaped  for  it,  as  no  doubt,  a  hundred 
times  he  had  crouched  beneath  the  flimsy  plat- 
forms in  the  matted  willows,  waiting  for  a  nestling 
or  an  egg  to  fall.  Out  in  the  lupine  and  marginal 
grass  we  found  a  Canada  goose  nest,  the  nest  of  a 
Wilson's  phalarope,  and  two  or  three  mallards' 
nests  which  he  had  rifled.  All  of  this  was  to  the 
creature's  discredit.  I  might  heartily  wish  him 
dead;  but  I  could  not  see  him  running  maimed 
into  the  desert  without  pity  and  without  protest 
against  the  careless  shot. 

You  cannot  follow  the  wild  trails  far  without 
the  conviction  that  the  human  hunter  is  the  cruel- 
est  of  all  the  beasts  of  prey.  You  will  wonder  if, 
for  every  creature  killed,  one  has  not  got  away 
wounded  to  die  a  dozen  deaths  in  the  brush.  I 
am  frequently  coming  upon  the  maimed  and 


78     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

dying.  Every  woodsman  and  warden  is  reporting 
them.  You  cannot  follow  the  sportsman  far 
without  foreseeing  still  longer  closed  seasons, 
much  stricter  regulations  of  all  shooting,  and  even 
moral  tests,  and  tests  for  marksmanship,  before  men 
with  guns  shall  be  allowed  to  go  without  official 
attendance  into  the  woods.  More  than  that,  if 
you  will  follow  the  sportsman  far  enough,  you 
will  lose  much  of  your  taste  for  blood;  you  will  be 
forced  to  the  conviction  that  the  pursuit  of  wild 
things  no  longer  has  its  legitimate  nor  its  most 
thrilling  consummation  in  the  kill.  By  the  very 
nature  of  things  there  must  be  less  killing,  while, 
at  the  same  time,  there  is  bound  to  be  an  ever 
increasing  multitude  of  those  who  love  to  hunt, 
and  who  may  hunt  but  who  must  not  kill;  for 
there  is  a  better  way,  without  the  chance  of  mis- 
ery, and  without  the  certain  extinction  that  dogs 
the  heels  of  the  hunter  as  sure  of  his  shadow. 
We  are  individually  responsible,  even  while  we 
put  upon  the  State  the  burden  for  this  better 
mind. 

The  driver  of  our  car  only  laughed  when  I 
wondered  how  long  the  coyote  with  the  broken 
leg  might  live.  "He'll  catch  lizards  and  horned 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    79 

toads  and  picket-pins,"  said  the  man;  "you 
need  n't  shed  any  tears  over  him.  But  the  jacks 
will  have  the  laugh  on  him  all  right."  So  they 
will,  for  they  are  his  food,  having  been  made  for 
the  coyote  as  the  shad-scale  and  the  settlers'  oats 
were  made  for  the  jack.  But  they  were  made  for 
four-legged  coyotes,  not  for  those  with  only  three 
legs.  The  coyote  works  for  a  living,  and  he  goes 
hungry  many  a  night  with  plenty  of  jacks  about 
him  in  the  sage.  Head  as  well  as  heels  are  neces- 
sary to  catch  the  rabbit  for  a  jack-rabbit  pie;  and 
if  the  coyote  is  a  cunning,  long-headed  wolf,  he 
has  .the  even  chance  of  his  hard  desert  life  to 
thank  for  it.  The  pursuer  always  has  an  advan- 
tage over  the  pursued,  a  moral  handicap  granted 
by  Nature  to  offset  the  physical  one  allowed  the 
pace-maker  —  a  narrow  margin  usually,  and  so 
narrow  between  these  two  of  the  desert  that, 
while  the  coyote  might  pull  down  the  jack  in 
a  straightaway  run,  life  for  him  at  such  a  pace 
would  hardly  be  worth  living.  It  is  lean  enough 
at  best. 

As  I  watched  the  wind  scoop  and  pile  the  sand 
about  the  butts  of  the  sagebushes,  or  saw  the 
white  drift  scud  and  curl  across  the  open ;  as  I 


8o     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

smelled  the  alkaloid  vapors  rising  from  the  lep- 
rous lake,  and  felt  the  scurvy  salt-grass  and  the 
scabby  crust  crack  under  my  feet,  I  could  only 
marvel  at  life  —  that  the  sagebrush  and  the  jack 
and  the  coyote  could  find  a  living  in  the  wilds  of 
this  desert  death.  So  far  as  I  could  discover,  there 
was  no  live  thing,  not  even  algse,  in  the  water  of 
the  lake;  but  here  and  there  the  rib  of  some 
starved  steer,  or  a  horn,  protruding  from  the  sur- 
face, as  other  bones,  in  whitened  heaps,  lay  scat- 
tered about  the  shore.  The  white  egrets  and  the 
pelicans  crossed  the  desert  to  Harney  and  Mal- 
heur  Lakes  for  their  fishing.  To  find  one's  self 
with  four  good  feet  in  a  land  like  this  were  des- 
perate enough ;  the  odds  are  too  many  against  the 
coyote  with  only  three. 

One  would  know  by  the  head  and  face  of  the 
coyote  that  he  is  among  the  wisest  and  most  capa- 
ble of  animals,  schooled  to  privation  and  hardship, 
and  able  to  hold  his  own,  not  only  with  the 
desert,  but  with  the  homesteader  as  well.  He  is 
doomed  to  disappear,  utterly  perhaps,  for  he  is 
just  enough  larger  than  the  fox  and  just  enough 
more  of  a  nuisance  in  a  settled  community  to 
make  himself  the  enemy  of  the  farmer  and  the 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    81 

rancher  who  might  overlook  the  smaller  trespass 
of  Reynard.  Yet  his  presence  seems  needed  upon 
the  desert,  for  though  a  killer  of  poultry  and 
lambs,  and  even  of  young  calves,  he  is  no  such 
plague  to  the  farmer  as  is  the  jack  rabbit,  whose 
only  natural  check,  besides  disease,  he  seems  to 
be.  The  coyotes,  a  few  years  ago,  were  numerous 
about  the  town  of  Burns.  We  had  gone  thirty 
miles  into  the  desert  before  seeing  this  one  at 
Silver  Lake.  Left  without  their  natural  enemy, 
not  only  the  jacks,  but  the  little  ground  squirrels, 
or  picket-pins,  also,  have  so  multiplied  on  the 
farms  about  the  town  as  to  become  a  plague. 
These  squirrels  are  to  be  seen  in  the  roads  by 
half-dozens;  and  I  inspected  one  alfalfa  meadow 
that  was  literally  honeycombed  with  their  tunnels, 
the  crop  so  badly  cut  into  that  the  damage  could 
be  seen  at  a  glance.  The  farmer  can  more  easily 
protect  himself  against  the  coyote  than  against 
the  rabbit  and  the  picket-pin. 

This  does  not  settle  the  problem  of  the  coyote ; 
and  he  is  only  one  item  in  the  very  complicated 
and  very  serious  problem  of  the  unbalanced  state 
of  things  everywhere  in  nature  due  to  our  taking 
over  the  affairs  outdoors.  That  the  sportsmen 


82     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

and  game  wardens  hate  him  is  natural.  The  loss 
of  bird-life  in  the  ten-mile  range  of  a  pair  of 
hunting  coyotes  must  be  fearful,  and  when  the 
ranges  overlap,  as  usually  they  do,  with  two  pairs 
or  three  pairs  of  the  keen,  hungry  brutes  quarter- 
ing the  territory,  nothing  but  the  nests  out  of 
reach  in  the  trees  can  possibly  escape.  In  the 
story  of  "  The  Coyote  of  Pelican  Point "  I  have 
given  an  account  of  an  exceptionally  troublesome 
creature  that  preyed  upon  the  bird  colonies  of 
Tule  Lake  southeast  of  the  Klamath  Lake  Reser- 
vation, threatening  the  annihilation  of  the  birds 
nesting  in  the  grass  about  the  shore  and  on  the 
low  lava  rocks  of  a  point  that  ran  into  the  lake. 
The  story  is  a  story,  the  actual  end  of  the  creature 
not  being  as  there  recorded,  but  the  havoc  he 
wrought,  and  the  difficulty  experienced  in  trying 
to  kill  him,  his  cunning  and  craft  when  traps  were 
set  for  him,  and  dogs  sent  after  him,  are  in  no 
wise  colored,  the  facts  having  been  given  me  as 
there  put  down.  This  fellow  lay  in  the  lap  of 
luxury,  the  abundant  wading  birds  of  the  lake, 
such  as  stilts  and  killdeer,  and  those  swimmers, 
like  the  ducks  and  geese,  that  build  in  the  mar- 
ginal grass,  being  his  easy  prey;  the  gulls  and 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    83 

other  swimmers,  such  as  terns  and  pelicans  and 
cormorants,  escaping  him,  in  most  part,  by  tread- 
ing down  the  tule  islands  in  the  middle  of  the 
lake  and  on  these  rearing  their  young. 

But  it  takes  the  wide  prairie,  or  the  desert,  to 
bring  out  the  best  in  the  coyote.  He  is  the  hunter 
of  the  plains,  the  rich  grass  or  stunted  sage  or 
scattered  rocks  hiding  him  equally  well,  and 
yielding  him  his  meager  but  sufficient  meat. 
Fitted  for  the  plains,  he  lives  where  almost  any 
other  carnivore  would  die,  combining  in  himself 
the  physical  and  mental  characteristics  of  both 
fox  and  wolf.  Sagacity  and  endurance  mark  him, 
and  a  peculiar  ingenuousness,  inquisitiveness  per- 
haps, that  leaves  his  face  without  a  trace  of  sav- 
agery. He  is  pretty  nearly  a  dog,  and  in  fact  is 
the  one  member  of  his  wild  tribe  that  has  a  well- 
developed  bark.  And,  like  the  dog,  he  loves  to 
bark,  the  dusk  and  moonlight  filling  his  soul  with 
a  solemn  music  that  every  sqjourner  on  the  plains 
has  listened  to.  No  more  weird  or  haunting  note 
was  ever  heard,  eerie,  wistful,  melancholy,  as  if 
the  inarticulate  tongue  would  utter  things  unut- 
terable, dim  brute  desires  that  our  human  tongues 
long  since  have  clothed  with  words.  I  have  never 


84     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

seen  the  timber  wolf  at  home,  nor  ever  heard  his 
"hunting  song,"  but  those  who  have  tell  me  that 
it  is  one  of  the  fearful  sounds  of  the  forest,  sinister 
and  savage.  The  little  red  fox  that  trots  across  my 
fields  daily,  and  that  frequently  "  barks  "  outside 
my  window,  has  a  voice  as  wild  as  the  wolf's,  a 
raucous,  raw,  uncultivated,  untrained  yap  which  I 
doubt  if  even  the  dogs  of  the  neighboring  farms 
recognize  as  belonging  to  one  of  their  tribe,  so 
indescribably  alien  does  it  sound,  breaking  in  upon 
the  faint  puff,  puff  of  the  engine  off  beyond  the 
woods,  or  the  muffled  passing  of  an  automobile  on 
the  distant  highway,  or  the  murmur  of  church  bells 
rising  and  falling  over  the  fields.  The  coyote  is 
more  wolf  than  fox,  but  more  dog  than  wolf,  and 
his  lonesome  baying  beneath  the  desert  moon,  so 
strangely  touched  with  sentiment,  so  filled  with 
longing,  would  blend  better  with  the  human 
sounds  of  my  twilight  than  it  does  with  the  sav- 
age silence  of  the  plains.  It  is  a  brute  voice,  but 
so  nearly  human,  as  it  calls  to  me  across  the  sage 
and  shadows,  that  I  could  answer  and,  it  seems, 
be  almost  understood. 

The  coyote  became  a  denizen  of  the  desert,  no 
doubt,  by  necessity,  the  larger  gray  wolf,  whose 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    85 

tastes  and  habits  were  similar,  taking  the  better 
stocked  timber  and  bottom  lands  and  forcing  the 
coyote  into  the  open  prairie  and  the  sage  plains 
to  make  whatever  shift  he  might.  He  has  been 
equal  to  it,  the  hardness  of  his  desert  life,  I  like 
to  think,  making  a  better  wolf  out  of  him.  I  say 
wolf,  and  the  better  the  wolf  the  more  we  may 
hate  him.  But  one  cannot  help  admiring  many  of 
his  ways  and  traits. 

The  exigencies  of  desert  life  have  made  mu- 
tual help  and  team-work  necessary  among  the 
coyotes,  two  of  them  hunting  together  more  suc- 
cessfully than  one,  a  fact  that  perhaps  explains 
their  mating  and  staying  together  from  year  to 
year.  It  is  generally  supposed  that  coyotes  mate 
for  life,  the  pair  appropriating  an  old  badger's 
burrow,  or  even  digging  one  of  their  own,  and 
then,  with  squatter's  rights,  taking  for  their  own 
hunting-grounds  enough  each  way  from  their  den 
to  support  them.  These  haunts,  of  course,  over- 
lap, two  or  three  pairs  sometimes  getting  together 
in  a  hunt ;  but  generally  the  coyote  works  alone, 
or  in  single  pairs,  each  pair's  own  range  being 
apparently  respected  by  the  near  neighbors. 

There  are  few  chapters  of  natural  history  more 


86     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

interesting  than  those  describing  the  team  and 
relay  hunting  of  the  coyote,  especially  when  ante- 
lope are  the  game.  Dr.  L.  E.  Hibbard,  of  Burns,  an 
authority  on  the  wild  life  of  the  desert,  told  me 
of  a  hunt  of  coyotes  that  he  had  a  hand  in,  which 
illustrates  not  only  the  cunning  of  the  hunters, 
but  the  remarkable  love  and  courage  of  the 
mother  antelope  as  well. 

Dr.  Hibbard  was  in  the  desert  for  young  ante- 
lope and  had  been  scouring  the  sage  for  hours, 
when,  coming  up  to  the  edge  of  a  sharp  rim  rock 
that  dropped  into  a  flat,  he  looked  down  upon  the 
thick  sage  and  saw  an  old  doe  antelope  with  three 
young  ones  which  she  was  trying  to  hide.  The  kids 
seemed  to  be  about  two  weeks  old  —  old  enough 
to  be  able  to  run  with  the  mother,  but  for 
some  reason  she  was  anxiously  trying  to  conceal 
them.  Then  he  saw  that  one  of  the  three  was  lame 
and  could  not  run,  that  this  one  was  perhaps  not 
the  mother's  own  at  all,  but  a  motherless  cripple 
that  had  adopted  her  or  that  she  had  adopted 
and  was  trying  to  rear.  Her  own  two  (if  these 
two  were  hers)  could  have  followed  her ;  it  was  on 
account  of  the  cripple  that  she  was  trying  to  hide 
them.  But  they  did  not  wish  to  hide.  They  were 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    87 

too  old.  Speed  had  already  come  to  their  winged 
legs,  and  speed  was  the  very  breath  of  their  young 
lives.  Yet  they  must  hide.  She  would  stop  and 
nurse  them  —  all  three  of  them  —  and  lie  down 
with  them  until  they  would  separate  and  get  out 
of  sight  under  the  sage,  or  more  generally  on  a 
floe  of  rock  similar  in  color  to  themselves ;  then, 
teetering,  peeking,  spying  behind  her,  she  would 
edge  quietly  away,  and  steal  off  just  like  a  poorly 
trained  human  mother  tiptoeing  out  of  a  room 
from  her  sleeping  child.  She  would  not  get  far 
before  up  would  come  their  little  ears,  then  their 
noses,  then  up  they  would  jump  and  make  after 
her. 

Again  she  would  lead  them  on  until  she  found 
a  good  hiding-place,  then  down  they  would  go,  the 
whole  sleeping-child  performance  gone  through 
with  again,  to  be  spoiled  again  by  the  restless 
little  kids  hopping  out  of  their  beds  and  calling 
"  Mamma ! "  Over  and  over  mamma  tried  to  hide 
them,  moving  off  the  flat  in  her  efforts,  and  down 
a  narrow  valley,  the  watcher  on  the  rim  rock  fol- 
lowing her  quite  unobserved. 

The  repeated  attempts  had  taken  the  antelope 
several  miles  down  the  valley  to  where  it  opened 


88     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

out  into  a  wide  sage  flat.  She  had  led  them  on  for 
perhaps  a  mile,  when,  coming  to  a  dense  patch 
of  rabbit-brush,  she  put  them  to  bed  again,  this 
time  successfully,  for  immediately  her  legs  began 
to  twinkle  as,  whisking  past  the  hunter,  hidden  in 
a  low  juniper  some  distance  but  in  the  flat,  she 
made  off  up  the  valley. 

Marking  the  spot  where  the  young  were  hid- 
den, Dr.  Hibbard  was  climbing  down  toward 
them,  when  he  heard  a  sharp  blat  and  saw  the 
three  young  antelope  tearing  down  the  trail  to- 
ward him,  the  lame  one  falling  a  little  behind. 
At  the  same  time  he  saw  the  old  antelope,  her 
hair  puffed,  racing  at  top  speed  back  toward  him 
and  the  coming  young  ones  and,  down  a  parallel 
trail  through  the  sage,  running  neck  and  neck 
with  the  mother,  three  coyotes,  who  had  evidently 
been  watching  the  whole  affair  from  the  edge  of 
the  rim  rock. 

It  was  a  race  between  the  mother  and  the  coy- 
otes to  reach  the  young  ones  first,  though  she  kept 
just  in  front  of  the  wolves  as  if  to  keep  them  back 
from  the  kids.  But  the  coyotes  were  at  her  heels, 
and  as  they  neared  the  kids,  one  of  the  three 
brutes,  outrunning  the  others,  came  up  at  her 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    89 

side  and,  cutting  in  ahead,  leaped  for  one  of 
the  little  fawns.  He  seized  it  by  the  neck,  but  as 
he  did  so  he  received  a  terrific  shoulder  stroke 
from  the  mother,  who,  with  a  twist  in  midair, 
leaped  at  him  as  he  leaped  at  the  kid.  The  blow 
broke  his  hold  upon  the  kid.  It  rolled  over  and 
over,  flashed  to  its  feet  without  ceasing  its  for- 
ward motion,  and  was  off,  while  the  mother,  quick 
after  the  shoulder  blow,  fetched  the  coyote  a 
racking  dig  in  the  ribs  with  all  four  of  her  sharp 
hoofs  that  sent  him  spinning  and  snapping  heels 
over  head  in  the  sage. 

Then  the  race  for  life  was  on  again.  The  doe, 
now  leaving  two  of  the  kids  to  their  wits  and 
their  heels,  hung  at  the  side  of  the  crippled  one, 
which  the  wolf  had  attacked.  The  coyote  was 
with  her,  watching  for  an  opening ;  but  her  de- 
fense was  marvelous,  she  and  the  kid  seemed 
one,  as  hawk  and  sparrow  seem  one  zigzagging 
through  the  air.  She  literally  covered  him  as 
they  darted  along.  But  the  little  fellow's  strength 
was  failing.  Suddenly  the  wolf  whipped  under 
the  flank  of  the  mother  and  with  a  long  leap 
again  caught  the  kid  by  the  throat,  only  again  to 
get  the  terrific  shoulder  blow  and  the  raking 


90     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

broadside  from  her  knife-like  hoofs.  She  had 
forced  him  to  drop  his  prey  the  second  time,  the 
kid  never  losing  an  instant  in  getting  to  his  feet 
and  running  on. 

But  he  staggered  now.  The  chase  had  been 
going  in  a  wide  circle,  bringing  the  runners 
around  somewhat  near  their  starting-place,  and 
near  to  the  two  coyotes  that  had  fallen  behind, 
who,  fresh  for  the  fray,  started  in  with  their  com- 
panion to  finish  the  work.  Meanwhile  the  two 
other  young  antelopes  had  run  off  and  hid  —  flat 
to  the  ground  somewhere,  the  invisible  cap  drawn 
over  them,  the  odorless  wind  blowing  across 
them  —  where  the  keen-eyed,  keen-nosed  coyote 
would  have  to  step  upon  them  before  he  could 
discover  that  they  were  not  stones  on  the  desert 
sand. 

The  race  was  almost  over,  however,  for  the  lit- 
tle handicapped  one,  the  mother  bravely  beating 
off  the  wolf  in  her  desperate  fight  to  save  the 
bleeding,  tottering  thing.  The  coyote  was  still 
afraid  of  her  shoulder  and  her  terrible  hoofs,  but 
now  merely  dodged  her  strokes,  growing  bolder 
as  the  kid  came  tottering  to  his  knees,  when 
again  he  leaped  and  seized  it. 


THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  DESERT    91 

At  this  point  the  companion  of  Dr.  Hibbard 
came  shouting  up  and  prevented  the  doe  from 
again  attacking  the  wolf,  which,  hoping  to  escape 
from  the  man,  held  his  prey  and  flattened  him- 
self to  the  sand.  But  the  hunter  rushed  at  htm 
with  stones,  and  the  coyote,  dropping  the  kid,  ran 
into  the  sage.  The  other  two  coyotes  now  joined 
him,  circling  about  the  man,  who  was  without  a 
gun,  as  they  tried  to  find  the  little  antelope.  But 
he  finally  drove  them  off.  The  poor  little  kid, 
however,  was  dead,  its  throat  torn  by  the  fierce 
fangs  that  the  mother  repeatedly  had  broken  from 
their  fatal  hold. 

But  the  other  two  kids  escaped — only  to  fall 
later,  perhaps  to  the  same  fangs.  It  was  a  close 
call  —  as  it  will  be  the  next  time,  as  it  always  is 
on  the  desert  and  here  in  my  own  Eastern  wood- 
lot,  and  elsewhere,  everywhere.  I  did  not  see  an 
antelope  in  these  deserts,  though  I  traveled  hun- 
dreds of  miles  looking  for  them.  I  had  to  content 
myself  with  studying  a  tame  one  at  the  Narrows, 
that  had  been  captured  in  the  sage.  Yet  a  few 
months  after  my  trip  through  the  plains,  the 
State's  wardens  counted  several  hundred  antelope 
where  I  thought  they  must  have  become  extinct 


92     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

The  coyote  and  they  have  always  dwelt  together 
on  the  desert,  the  hand  of  Nature  giving  differ- 
ently, but  giving  evenly,  to  them  both. 

There  used  to  be  no  shadow  on  the  desert. 
Death  crossed;  but  only  Life  dwelt  among  the 
rim  rocks  and  the  sage.  The  gray-brown  shadow 
that  I  had  seen  on  the  shores  of  Silver  Lake  was 
no  shadow  at  all;  it  was  a  coyote.  But  that  even- 
ing as  we  left  Silver  Lake  behind  us  and  were 
speeding  out  through  the  sage,  we  came  upon 
a  straight,  interminable  line  of  squared  pine  stakes 
set  low  in  the  sand,  the  trail  of  the  surveyor 
driven  into  the  breast  of  the  desert;  and  a  long, 
interminable  line  of  stakes  cast  a  long,  intermin- 
able shadow  —  the  shadow  of  a  coming  railroad 
that  lay  direct  and  dark  across  the  plain. 


V 

ON    THE   MARSHES   OF   MALHEUR 


ON   THE   MARSHES   OF  MALHEUR 

E  sedges  were  full  of  birds,  the 
waters  were  full  of  birds,  the  tules 
were  full  of  birds,  the  skies  were 
full  of  birds :  avocets,  stilts,  willets, 
killdeers,  coots,  phalaropes,  rails,  tule 
wrens,  yellow-headed  blackbirds,  black  terns,  Fors- 
ter's  terns,  Caspian  terns,  pintail,  mallard,  cinna- 
mon teal,  canvas-back,  redhead  and  ruddy  ducks, 
Canada  geese,  night  herons,  great  blue  herons, 
Farallon  cormorants,  great  white  pelicans,  great 
glossy  ibises,  California  gulls,  eared  grebes,  West- 
ern grebes — clouds  of  them,  acres  of  them,  square 
miles — one  hundred  and  forty-three  square  miles 
of  them ! 

I  was  beside  myself  at  the  sight — at  the  sound 
—  at  the  thought  that  such  wild  life  could  still 
be  anywhere  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  to  say 
nothing  of  finding  it  within  the  borders  of  my 
own  land.  Here  was  a  page  out  of  the  early  his- 
tory of  our  country ;  no,  an  actual  area  of  that 


96     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

wild,  unspoiled,  unslaughtered  country  as  the  In- 
dian knew  it,  as  Lewis  and  Clark  saw  it  on  that 
first  trip  across  the  continent. 

The  accounts  of  bird-life  in  early  American 
writings  read  to  us  now  like  the  wildest  of  wild 
tales  —  the  air  black  with  flocks  of  red-winged 
blackbirds,  the  marshes  white  with  feeding  herons, 
the  woods  weighted  with  roosting  pigeons.  I  have 
heard  my  mother  tell  of  being  out  in  a  flock  of 
passenger  pigeons  so  vast  that  the  sun  was  dark- 
ened, the  birds  flying  so  low  that  men  knocked 
them  down  with  sticks.  As  a  child  I  once  saw 
the  Maurice  River  meadows  white  with  egrets, 
and  across  the  skies  of  the  marshes  farther  down, 
unbroken  lines  of  flocking  blackbirds  that  touched 
opposite  sides  of  the  horizon. 

That  was  years  ago.  I  had  seen  nothing  like  it 
since ;  nor  did  I  ever  again  expect  to  see  it.  I  had 
heard  of  Malheur  Lake,  when,  some  few  years 
ago,  the  naturalist  through  whose  efforts  it  was 
made  a  Federal  reservation  visited  me  and  told 
me  about  it.  He  even  brought  photographs  of  its 
bird-colonies.  But  words  and  pictures  gave  no 
conception  of  the  extent  of  its  uncrowded  crowds 
of  life.  For  what  could  a  camera  do  with  one 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     97 

hundred  and  forty-three  square  miles  of  swim- 
ming, winging,  crying  birds? 

Lake  Malheur  Reservation  is  in  the  southeast- 
ern quarter  of  Oregon,  and  is  only  one  of  several 
such  wild-life  sanctuaries  within  the  borders  of 
that  great  commonwealth.  Indeed,  the  work  being 
done  by  Oregon  for  the  protection  of  wild  life 
seems  almost  past  belief  to  one  used  to  the  small 
things  of  the  Eastern  States.  And  the  work  there 
has  but  just  begun!  In  1912  the  private  game 
"  refuges,"  where  the  State  Game  Warden  has  en- 
tered into  contracts  with  owners  of  private  land, 
covered  an  area  of  143,789  acres.  In  addition  to 
these  small  refuges  there  are  six  vast  state  reser- 
vations, set  aside  forever  by  the  Legislature  for 
game  and  bird  protection,  covering  1,698,320 
acres,  or  2654  square  miles,  an  area  more  than 
twice  the  size  of  Rhode  Island.  Besides  these  state 
reservations  are  the  four  great  Federal  preserves : 
Three  Arch  Rocks  Reservation,  off  the  coast;  Kla- 
math  Lake  Reservation,  lying  partly  in  Oregon 
and  partly  in  California;  Cold  Springs  Reservation, 
in  Umatilla  County,  in  the  northeast ;  and  Lake 
Malheur  Reservation,  including  the  waters  and 
marshlands  of  Malheur  and  Harney  Lakes,  and 


98     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON' 

situated  in  the  midst  of  protecting  sagebrush 
plains  that  stretch  from  the  foothills  of  the  Cas- 
cades eastward  to  the  canon  of  the  Snake  River  at 
the  foot  of  the  Rockies  in  Idaho. 

Separated  thus  by  the  deserts  from  any  close 
encroachment,  saved  to  itself  by  its  own  vast  size 
and  undrainable,  unusable  bottoms,  and  guarded 
by  its  Federal  warden  and  the  scattered  ranchers 
who  begin  to  see  its  meaning,  Lake  Malheur 
Reservation  must  supply  water-fowl  enough  to 
restock  forever  the  whole  Pacific  slope. 

For  here  in  the  marsh  of  burr  reed  and  tule, 
the  wild  fowl  breed  as  in  former  times  when  only 
the  canoe  of  the  Indian  plied  the  lake's  shallow 
waters,  when  only  the  wolf  and  the  coyote  prowled 
about  its  wide,  sedgy  shores.  I  saw  the  coyote  still 
slinking  through  the  sage  and  salt  grass  along  its 
borders;  I  picked  up  the  black  obsidian  arrow- 
heads in  the  crusty  sand  on  the  edge  of  the  sage 
plain ;  and  in  a  canoe  I  slipped  through  the  green- 
walled  channels  of  the  Blitzen  River  out  into  the 
sea  of  tule  islands  amid  such  a  flapping,  splashing, 
clacking,  honking  multitude  as  must  have  risen 
from  the  water  when  the  red  man's  paddle  first 
broke  its  even  surface. 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR    99 

No,  not  quite  such  a  multitude,  for  there  was 
no  snowy  gleaming  of  egrets  in  the  throngs  over- 
head. The  plume-hunter  had  been  before  us,  and 
the  glory  of  the  lake  was  gone.  That  story  is  one 
of  the  tragedies  of  bird-life,  and  vividly  told  in 
William  L.Finley's  account  of  "The  Trail  of  the 
Plume-Hunter,"  in  the  " Atlantic  Monthly"  for 
September,  1910.  He  says,  writing  of  his  and 
Bohlman's  journey  into  the  Malheur  country  in 
1908:- 

"We  had  hunted  where  one  might  think  no 
human  being  had  ever  been,  but  long  before  we 
had  traveled  over  these  apparently  unknown  re- 
gions, plumers  had  preceded  us.  We  followed  in 
their  trails.  We  camped  where  they  had  camped. 
We  had  traveled  hundreds  of  miles  exploring  the 
haunts  where  white  herons  used  to  live,  but  up  to 
the  summer  of  1 908  we  had  not  seen  a  single  one 
of  these  birds. 

"  This  is  historic  ground  for  the  bird  man.  In 
the  early  seventies  the  well-known  ornithologist-, 
the  late  Captain  Charles  Bendire,  was  stationed 
at  Camp  Harney  on  the  southern  slope  of  the 
Blue  Mountains,  straight  across  the  valley  from 
where  we  stood.  He  gave  us  the  first  account  of 


ioo     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

the  bird-life  in  this  region.  He  saw  the  wonder- 
ful sights  of  the  nesting  multitudes.  He  told  of 
the  colonies  of  white  herons  that  lived  in  the  wil- 
lows along  the  lower  Silvies  River.  There  was 
the  river  itself  winding  across  the  valley  through 
sage,  rye-grass  flats,  and  tule  marshes,  its  trail 
marked  by  a  growth  of  willow  and  alder. 

"Two  days  ago  we  had  followed  this  trail,  and 
searched  out  these  places  to  photograph  the  white 
heron.  As  we  approached  the  trees,  said  to  be 
alive  with  birds,  all  was  silent. 

" '  We  're  on  the  wrong  trail  again/  my  com- 
panion had  suggested ;  but  pushing  through  the 
willows  I  saw  big  nests  in  the  trees  on  both  sides 
of  the  river.  Strange  to  say,  not  a  single  bird !  I 
clambered  up  to  one  of  the  lower  nests,  and 
found  a  rough  platform  of  sticks  upon  which  lay 
the  bleached  bones  of  two  herons.  I  climbed  an- 
other and  another.  Each  home  was  a  funeral 
pyre. 

"'Epidemic?'  said  my  companion. 

"  'Yes,  of  plume-hunters ! '  I  retorted. 

"  Here  was  a  great  cemetery  in  the  silence  of 
the  marsh.  But  one  nest  was  inhabited.  A  long- 
eared  owl  was  in  possession  sitting  on  five  eggs. 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     101 

As  we  approached,  she  spread  her  wings,  and  left 
without  a  sound.  Ill-omened  creature  brooding 
eggs  and  bones! 

"Standing  here  high  above  the  valley,  with 
my  field-glass  I  picked  out  the  very  spot  of  this 
great  bird-massacre  that  we  had  visited. 

" '  I  hope  we  find  no  more  like  that,'  said  my 
companion  as  he  tightened  the  camera-straps 
about  his  shoulders,  and  started  off  down  the  trail 
toward  the  lake. 

"  We  were  both  confident  that  somewhere  down 
in  that  distant  sea  of  green  tules,  we  could  find 
at  least  one  place  where  white  herons  were  nest- 
ing. 

"  We  outfitted  for  a  week's  trip,  and  set  out 
down  the  spring  branch.  This  time  we  kept  a 
straight  course  to  the  north  until  we  reached  the 
main  body  of  the  lake.  All  day  long  we  hunted 
and  watched  the  birds,  lining  them  with  our  field- 
glasses  as  they  flew  back  and  forth  over  the  lake. 
We  saw  no  signs  of  white  herons. 

"  That  day  we  found  a  colony  where  the  great 
blue  heron  nested.  White  herons  were  formerly 
common  here,  both  species  nesting  together.  Not 
a  single  white  bird  left ! 


102     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

"  We  spent  the  next  four  days  here  and  there 
through  the  vast  extent  of  tule  islands  and  water, 
searching  and  keeping  watch  all  day,  trying  to 
find  white  herons.  Late  one  afternoon  we  came 
to  a  place  where  another  big  colony  of  blue  her- 
ons was  nesting.  We  had  been  seeking  this  place. 
Malheur  Lake  is  divided  in  several  parts  by  the 
long  lines  of  tule  islands.  We  were  in  the  north- 
ern part.  The  colony  was  on  two  long  tule  islands 
that  lined  up  with  Pine  Knob  and  the  east  end 
of  Wright's  Point.  On  the  north  end  is  a  big 
canebrake. 

"We  sat  in  the  boat  at  the  edge  of  the  cane- 
brake,  and  watched  the  big  birds  as  they  sailed 
over,  dropped  in,  and  departed.  We  were  tired 
from  the  long  day's  search.  I  did  not  then  know 
the  story  as  I  know  it  now :  but  hidden  in  the 
end  of  this  canebrake  a  hunter  had  had  his  blind, 
ten  years  before. 

"  That  summer  of  1898  was  eventful  in  white- 
heron  history  here  on  Malheur  Lake.  Early  in  the 
season  two  men  had  arrived  at  Narrows,  bought 
lumber,  and  built  a  flat-bottom,  double-ended 
boat.  They  set  out  from  Narrows  with  a  small 
outfit.  They  fought  mosquitoes  day  and  night  as 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     103 

we  had ;  they  drank  the  alkali  water ;  they  slept 
in  the  boat  or  on  muskrat  houses  while  they 
hunted  up  and  down  the  waters  of  the  lake  and  the 
tule  islands.  They  saw  the  great  flocks  of  white 
pelicans,  cormorants,  terns,  gulls,  grebes,  and 
other  birds.  They  saw  the  white  herons  in  slow, 
stately  flight  wherever  they  went,  but  it  was  not 
till  after  several  days  that  they  located  the  big 
colony  here  on  the  island  by  the  canebrake,  the 
greatest  colony  they  had  ever  seen.  What  a  sight 
it  must  have  been,  thousands  of  these  birds,  daz- 
zling white  in  the  sun,  coming  and  going  from 
the  feeding-grounds,  and  hovering  over  their 
homes ! 

"  On  all  sides  were  the  homes,  built  up  a  foot  or 
two  from  the  surface,  each  having  three  or  four 
frowsy-headed  youngsters  or  as  many  eggs.  At 
each  end  of  the  colony  a  plumer  sat  hidden  in  his 
blind.  At  the  first  crack  of  the  gun,  a  great 
snowy  bird  tumbled  headlong  near  its  own  nest. 
As  the  shot  echoed  across  the  lake,  it  sounded  the 
doom  of  the  heron  colony.  Terror-stricken,  on 
every  side  white  wings  flapped,  till  the  air  was 
completely  filled.  Shot  followed  shot  unremit- 
tingly as  the  minutes  passed  into  hours.  Still  the 


104    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

heron  mothers  came  to  hover  over  this  scene  of 
death  and  destruction.  Mother-love  was  but  the 
lure  to  slaughter. 

"By  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  day's 
shoot  ended.  It  took  the  rest  of  the  day  for  the 
hunters  to  collect  the  dead  and  take  the  plumes. 
Stripping  the  plumes  is  rapid  work.  It  takes  but 
the  slash  of  the  knife  across  the  middle  of  the 
back,  a  cut  down  each  side,  and  a  swift  jerk. 

"  Long  after  dark  the  plumers  heard  the  steady 
quacking  clatter  of  young  herons  crying  to  be  fed. 
Far  into  the  night,  hoarse  croaks  sounded  over  the 
still  lake,  greetings  of  those  birds  that  had  spent 
the  day  fishing  in  distant  swamps.  It  argued 
good  shooting  again  for  the  morrow. 

"  The  second  day  was  a  repetition  of  the  first. 
Heron  numbers  thinned  rapidly.  Here  on  these 
two  islands,  the  plumers  harvested  a  crop  that 
yielded  twelve  hundred  dollars  in  a  day  and  a 
half.  They  collected  a  load  of  plumes  worth 
their  weight  in  gold.  Were  the  California  days  of 
'49  much  better  ? 

"  Malheur  has  seen  many  such  massacres,  but 
none  so  great  as  that.  Little  did  we  know  of  these 
facts  as  we  sat  watching  the  blue  herons  coming 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     105 

and  going,  expecting  to  find  at  least  a  few  white 
herons  somewhere  about  the  locality. 

"  After  hunting  for  seven  days  we  returned  to 
camp  for  more  provisions,  and  set  out  to  visit 
another  part  of  the  lake.  This  time  we  stayed  out 
for  nine  days,  and  saw  —  two  white  herons !  At 
the  time  we  thought  these  must  be  part  of  a  group 
that  nested  somewhere  about  the  lake;  yet  more 
likely  they  were  a  single  stray  bird  that  came  our 
way  twice.  I  am  satisfied  that  of  the  thousands 
of  white  herons  formerly  nesting  on  Malheur,  not 
a  single  pair  of  birds  is  left." 

It  may  have  been  two  birds  that  they  saw  and 
not  one.  For  he  has  not  told  all  of  the  story 
yet;  how  in  the  summer  of  1912  he  received 
a  telegram  saying  white  herons  (the  American 
egret)  had  been  seen  passing  over  the  marshes  of 
Malheur;  nor  how  we  set  out  from  Portland  for 
Burns ;  nor  how,  away  off  on  an  island  in  the 
alkali  water  of  Silver  Lake,  some  fifty  miles  in 
the  desert  from  Malheur,  we  found  the  birds  — 
a  colony  of  a  dozen  pairs,  numbering  with  the 
young  about  twenty-eight  birds  all  told;  nor 
how  — 

But  that  is  for  him  to  tell,  if  he  will.  For  if  the 


io6     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

egret  is  ever  again  seen  flying  over  the  inland 
waters  of  the  Pacific  coast,  it  will  be  due  to  Wil- 
liam L.  Finley,  to  his  discovery  of  the  slaughter 
on  his  trip  into  the  Malheur  in  1908,  and  to  his 
efforts  which  made  Malheur  a  wild-bird  reserva- 
tion. 

But  was  it,  we  wonder,  one  bird  or  two  that 
he  saw  winging  over  the  lake  in  1908  ?  If  two 
birds,  were  they  male  and  female  ?  and  were  they 
the  last  two  ?  and  is  this  small  colony  which  we 
discovered  four  years  later  in  Silver  Lake,  the 
seed  of  that  last  solitary  pair?  Could  it  have  been 
that  the  race  was  so  nearly  cut  off  in  all  this  part 
of  the  world?  and  does  it  mean  that  slowly  now, 
with  the  new  protection  of  these  better  times,  the 
egret  will  come  back  to  the  willows  along  the 
Silvies  and  at  Clear  Lake,  and  to  the  islands  in 
the  canebrake  of  the  Malheur  ? 

I  think  so.  In  the  willows  of  Silver  Lake,  I 
counted  twenty-eight  birds.  These  are  enough  if 
they  are  given  a  chance.  The  life  of  the  species, 
however,  does  not  hang  upon  this  perilously 
slender  thread.  Along  the  Gulf  and  Southern 
Atlantic  States,  and  in  the  Middle  West,  small 
colonies  are  reported  as  surviving,  mere  handfuls, 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     107 

where  the  plume-hunter  found  immense  rooker- 
ies. Bird-lovers  the  world  over  are  watching  these 
remnants  with  intense  concern.  Nowhere  were 
the  herons  as  nearly  wiped  out,  it  appears,  as  in 
Oregon ;  and  nowhere  will  their  escape  and  ulti- 
mate restoration  seem  more  of  a  miracle. 

But  desert  and  marsh  and  even  my  little  wood- 
lot  are  full  of  miracles.  The  ways  of  Nature  are 
not  past  finding  out ;  she  does  not  move  so  mys- 
teriously as  amazingly,  her  wonders  to  perform. 
She  could  not  restore  the  American  egret  without 
a  pair  to  work  with.  She  never  could  use  crows 
for  the  purpose.  But  given  the  pair  of  birds, 
then  the  loaves  and  fishes  become  snowy,  winged 
things,  gleaming  above  the  marsh  by  thousands, 
and  decked  in  bridal  dress  of  surpassingly  lovely 
plumes. 

While  here  on  Malheur  I  witnessed  a  sight 
among  the  grebes,  that  gave  me  further  reason 
for  my  faith  in  the  resources  of  Nature,  open  as 
the  happening  may  be  to  a  contrary  interpreta- 
tion. 

On  the  day  of  our  arrival  at  the  town  of 
Burns  the  wardens  of  Malheur  met  us  with  the  re- 
port of  a  new  grebe  colony  (these  birds  had  also 


io8     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

nearly  been  exterminated  by  the  plume-hunter), 
which  they  had  discovered  only  the  day  before 
off  in  the  lake.  We  had  ridden  across  the  desert 
that  afternoon  in  the  teeth  of  a  stiff  wind,  and  the 
wardens,  anxious  to  show  us  the  new  colony, 
were  greatly  concerned  for  fear  that  this  wind 
might  wreck  the  nests  exposed  to  its  sweep  across 
the  wide  level  of  the  lake. 

For  it  was  nesting-time  and  the  colony  had 
built  far  out  on  the  open  water  in  a  close,  contin- 
uous line  a  mile  long  and  three  hundred  yards 
wide,  —  a  community  of  twenty-four  hundred 
floating  nests. 

The  figures  are  true.  The  wardens  actually 
staked  off  the  colony,  measured  it,  and  literally 
counted  the  nests.  I  paddled  along  its  length 
myself,  and  while  I  did  not  count,  I  did  believe 
their  figures. 

It  was  to  visit  this  colony  of  grebes  that  we 
wound  our  way  through  the  narrow  turnings  of 
the  Blitzen  River  out  into  the  wider  maze  of  the 
vast  lake,  where  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but 
water  and  tules  —  and  birds,  myriads  of  birds. 
But  the  wardens  had  blazed  a  trail  by  tying  the 
tule-tops  together  into  big  knots,  which  we  could 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     109 

see  from  island  to  island  ahead  of  us  as  we  pad- 
dled along. 

This  was  on  Monday.  It  was  on  Thursday  the 
week  before  that  the  wardens  had  found  the  col- 
ony; and  now,  as  we  came  out  of  the  mouth  of 
the  Blitzen,  we  ran  straight  into  a  grebe  colony 
of  over  a  hundred  nests  that  was  not  there  at  all 
four  days  before.  One  of  the  wardens,  who  was 
in  the  canoe  with  us,  thought  we  must  be  off  the 
course.  But  here  were  his  knots  in  the  tules.  The 
nests  had  been  built,  all  of  them,  since  Thursday, 
and  most  of  them  were  already  with  eggs. 

There  must  be  some  mistake,  I  thought,  and 
turned  to  watching  the  birds ;  for  it  was  not  the 
nests  that  interested  me  half  so  much  as  the  anx- 
iety of  the  grebes  at  discovering  us.  Every  one 
began  hurriedly  pulling  the  wet  tule  stems  and 
milfoil  of  the  nest  over  her  eggs  to  hide  them 
before  we  should  come  up,  working  against  her 
fears,  and  at  the  risk  of  her  life,  to  save  her 
eggs  —  to  protect  the  seed  of  the  race ! 

A  racial  instinct,  you  say,  only  a  race  act,  every 
bird  doing  as  every  other  bird  did  that  had  eggs. 
True,  but  here,  as  with  the  murres  on  Three-Arch 
Rocks,  there  was  plainly  individual  action,  deep 


no    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

individual  concern,  the  mother  feeling,  holding 
some  of  the  birds  to  their  duty  long  after  others 
had  taken  wing  in  fright. 

To  rob  the  animals  of  individuality  —  to  re- 
duce them  to  automata,  acting  mechanically  ac- 
cording to  inherited  race  instincts,  is  to  reduce 
all  life  to  grass  and  the  grass  almost  to  hay. 

"  Through  primrose  tufts,  in  that  green  bower, 

The  periwinkle  trailed  its  wreaths, 
And  'tis  my  faith  that  every  flower 
Enjoys  the  air  it  breathes." 

And  't  is  my  further  faith  that  every  bird  and  ani- 
mal and  insect  enjoys  the  air  it  breathes,  and  loves 
and  hates  and  woos  and  fights  and  suffers,  not  in 
the  same  degree,  but  somewhat  after  the  manner 
of  humans. 

"  To  her  fair  works  did  Nature  link 
The  human  soul  that  through  me  ran." 

I,  too,  am  an  automaton,  a  wheel  in  a  great  race- 
machine.  I  do  certain  things  because  the  race  has 
done  them  and  continues  to  do  them.  Perhaps  I 
have  never  done  anything  that  the  race  has  not 
done.  Perhaps  I  am  my  whole  race.  Perhaps  I 
have  been  in  my  development,  since  I  was  con- 
ceived, all  the  races  down  to  the  single-celled 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     in 

amoeba.  Yet  I  am;  and  the  race  is;  but  as  for 
the  race,  I  can  say,  "Go  to!" 

So  the  individual  grebe  is.  The  sight  of  these 
hundred  feverishly  pulling  down  the  walls  of  their 
nests  to  cover  their  eggs  was  a  very  human  sight, 
poignant,  personal,  and  not  the  mechanics  of  race 
instinct  at  all. 

The  grebe  builds  a  floating  nest  out  in  the 
open  water.  All  over  the  bottom  of  the  clear 
lake,  which  averaged  about  four  feet  in  depth, 
grew  the  long,  trailing,  mosslike  water-milfoil,  its 
whorled  leaves  and  purple  stems  giving  a  faint 
glow  of  color  to  the  water  as  we  looked  down 
into  it.  The  grebes  dive  to  the  bottom  and  drag 
up  this  milfoil  into  heaps,  or  cocks,  about  six  feet 
across  on  the  bottom.  The  cocks  are  barely  able 
to  float  their  tops  above  the  surface.  Upon  the  very 
peak  of  this  cock  they  hollow  out  a  nest  about 
the  size  of  a  man's  hat,  building  up  the  walls  with 
dead  tule  stems  until  the  eggs  rest  just  out  of  the 
water,  though  many  of  them  are  partly  sub- 
merged. The  nests  are  usually  so  close  together 
that  their  wide  bases  touch  below,  but  otherwise 
they  are  entirely  unanchored  and  at  the  mercy  of 
wind  and  wave. 


ii2     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

This  was  the  cause  of  the  wardens'  anxiety,  and, 
halting  only  long  enough  to  count  the  new  nests 
and  get  some  photographs  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river,  we  pushed  on  up  the  lake. 

I  shall  try  to  describe  that  trip  sometime  —  the 
long  lines  of  white  water  kicked  up  by  the  rising 
birds;  the  clapping  of  wings,  the  splashing  of 
feet ;  the  tule  islands  trodden  flat  by  the  rookeries 
of  young  gulls  and  pelicans  and  cormorants ;  the 
diving  of  the  grebes  about  us;  the  soaring  of  the 
majestic  pelicans  far  above  us  —  but  not  any  of 
that  now. 

We  had  paddled  for  an  hour  or  two  when  on 
the  water  in  the  distance  appeared  a  wide  wash 
of  pink,  as  if  the  clouds  of  a  sunset  were  reflected 
there.  It  was  the  purple  of  the  milfoil  in  the  nests 
of  the  great  grebe  colony.  We  quickened  our 
stroke,  and  as  we  drew  nearer,  marveling  at  the 
extent  of  it,  we  were  struck  with  the  silence  at 
our  coming  and  the  absence  of  birds  in  the  nests. 
A  few  were  on  wing ;  a  few  were  seen  covering 
their  eggs ;  that  was  all.  There  was  no  clangor  of 
the  crowd,  no  diving  multitude  about  us  —  but 
such  a  sight  of  destruction  as  I  hope  never  again 
to  see ! 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     113 

Of  the  twenty-four  hundred  nests  not  three 
hundred  were  left.  Tossed  and  torn,  the  nests  had 
been  driven  by  the  high  waves  and  the  strong 
wind  back  upon  themselves,  in  some  places  sev- 
eral deep,  their  pale  white  eggs  by  thousands 
scattered  through  the  tangled  debris  or  floating 
free  in  the  water. 

The  rookery  was  an  utter  wreck.  The  birds, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  pairs,  had  abandoned 
it  —  had  gone,  some  hundred  pairs  of  them,  down 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Blitzen  and  there  started  the 
new  colony  which  we  had  encountered  coming 
out. 

I  don't  know  which  impressed  me  more  —  the 
fearful  loss  and  waste  of  life  here,  or  the  thought 
of  that  quick  recovery  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Blitzen. 

The  birds  had  shown  no  judgment  in  choosing 
this  place  for  their  rookery.  No  more  exposed 
position  could  have  been  found  in  the  entire 
lake.  The  colony  had  acted  blindly,  stupidly; 
had  learned  nothing  as  a  colony  in  their  million 
ages  of  nest-building,  nor  ever  shall  learn.  But 
how  swift  to  begin  again!  How  fertile  in  re- 
source !  How  absolute  to  command !  With  the 


n4     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

nest  done,  the  season's  clutch  of  eggs  laid,  and 
incubation  started,  to  see  it  all  destroyed,  and  in 
less  than  a  week  to  have  built  again  and  to  have 
summoned  the  secret  forces  of  life  with  new  eggs 
for  the  new  nests ! 

Can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is  old  ?  No,  be- 
cause there  is  not  a  need  for  such  rebirth.  But  if 
there  were  need,  if  that  were  the  only  way  of  pre- 
serving the  race,  the  thing  would  be  done. 

The  autumn  winds  strip  my  trees  of  their  with- 
ered leaves,  and  the  buds  swell  and  leaf  out  again 
in  the  spring.  That  is  the  natural  cycle.  There  is 
nothing  mysterious  about  that.  The  caterpillars 
stripped  them  of  their  green  leaves  in  July.  The 
naked  things  shrank  and  shuddered  in  the  burn- 
ing heat,  the  sap  standing  still  in  their  veins. 
Then,  instantly  laying  hold  with  their  manifold 
fingers  on  the  subtile  threads  of  life,  they  wove 
and  fashioned  and  put  on  a  new  mantle,  a  mira- 
cle, that  the  span  of  the  summer  might  be  crossed, 
and  the  seed  carried  over  for  another  spring. 

It  was  so  with  the  grebes.  It  is  so  with  all  life 
—  each  living  thing  a  multitude,  each  individual 
its  whole  race  latent  —  potent  if  need  be. 

A  bare  handful  of  the  former  myriads  of  the 


THE  MARSHES  OF  MALHEUR     115 

white  herons,  or  egrets,  are  left  on  Malheur.  I 
hope  to  make  the  trip  again  from  Bend  to  Burns, 
and  from  Burns  down  to  Malheur  Reservation,  in 
order  to  see  the  gleaming,  shimmering  flocks  of 
the  snowy  creatures  that  I  am  sure  shall  be  pass- 
ing to  and  from  their  island  rookeries  in  the  cane 
and  tules  at  the  head  of  tne  marshy  lake. 


VI 

THE   SPIRIT   OF   THE   HERD 


VI 


THE  SPIRIT   OF   THE   HERD 

more  interesting  group  of  animals 
can  be  found  the  world  over  than 
those  in  the  zoological  garden  of 
the  average  farmyard.  The  history 
of  their  domestication  is  exceed- 
ingly, humanly  interesting;  but  still  more  inter- 
esting is  the  phenomenon  itself — what  it  has 
wrought  in  the  animals,  and  what  it  has  left  un- 
changed. For  if  domestication  has  not  changed 
the  leopard's  spots,  it  is  because  the  leopard  has 
never  been  domesticated.  There  is  little  in  the 
style  of  spots  that  domestication  cannot  change. 
Color,  size,  and  shape  are  as  clay;  habits  and 
tempers,  even,  have  been  made  over.  But  not 
the  creature  itself,  not  the  wild  instinctive  thing 
within  the  fur  or  the  feathers :  for  this  has  hardly 
been  touched  by  domestication. 

That  some  species  of  animals  are  more  amena- 
ble than  others,  are  predisposed  to  domestication, 
is  evident.  Nothing  in  wild  life  is  more  amazing 


120     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

than  the  suddenness  and  the  completeness  of  the 
elephant's  yielding  to  the  howdah  and  the  ankus 
—  as  if  his  slow  years  had  been  only  a  waiting  for 
some  rajah  to  take  him  from  his  jungle.  The 
zebra,  on  the  other  hand,  though  a  true  horse,  has 
never  been  tamed,  or  rather,  domesticated.  He  is 
irredeemably  wild.  So  is  the  Asiatic  ass,  which 
stood  to  the  ancient  Hebrew  writers  for  the  very 
symbol  of  the  free  and  untamable;  whereas  the 
Nubian  wild  ass  (the  parent  of  our  deeply  do- 
mesticated donkey)  is  readily  brought  to  harness. 
For  many  reasons,  we  are  likely  to  add  new 
species  from  time  to  time  to  our  domesticated 
family.  The  establishment  of  fox-farms  is  pretty 
sure,  in  the  end,  to  yield  a  domesticated  fox ;  and 
this  may  yet  happen  even  to  the  bison,  and  to 
many  species  of  birds  now  wild.  In  Oregon  the 
China  pheasant  is  almost  a  domesticated  fowl, 
and  waits  only  to  be  clucked  into  the  coop. 
In  a  ride  from  Corvallis  to  Portland  by  train 
through  the  Willamette  Valley,  just  as  the  har- 
vesting was  done,  I  counted  from  my  car-window 
fifty-one  flocks  of  these  magnificent  game-birds 
feeding  in  the  stubble-fields.  They  were  often  so 
near  the  houses,  and  regularly  so  much  a  part  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     121 

the  farms,  as  to  seem  like  "  tame  villatic  fowl." 
And  so,  indeed,  the  farmers  do  look  upon  them, 
jealously  guarding  and  feeding  the  flocks  in  win- 
ter and  quick  to  resent  any  illegal  shooting  of  the 
birds.  In  some  parts  of  the  East  the  China  pheas- 
ant is  as  completely  naturalized  and  almost  as 
much  domesticated  as  in  Oregon.  Here  about 
me  in  Massachusetts  the  village  folk  are  even 
complaining  that  the  birds  are  raiding  their  gar- 
dens. They  are  too  easily  checked  ever  to  be- 
come a  nuisance  here  as  the  rabbit  did  in  Australia 
or  the  mongoose  has  in  Jamaica;  but  perhaps  we 
shall  need  to  adopt  them,  domesticate  them  in 
order  to  save  them  and  protect  ourselves  against 
them.  They  are  pretty  nearly  as  tame  as  the 
pigeon  and  as  ready  for  domestication  as  the 
guinea  or  the  turkey  must  have  been. 

But  the  tame  turkey  is  essentially  a  wild  bird, 
and  none  of  our  farmyard  creatures  shows  more 
strikingly  than  he  how  hardly  feather-deep  is  the 
domestication  which  he  wears.  He  has  learned 
nothing  new  in  his  hundreds  of  years  in  the  farm- 
yard (he  was  domesticated  by  the  Indians  of 
Mexico  long  before  the  "discovery"  of  America) ; 
nor  has  he  forgotten  one  of  the  old  wild  things 


122     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

he  came  from  the  woods  knowing.  He  accepts 
the  fenced  and  cluttered  farm,  turns  it  into  the 
tall,  timbered  river-bottom,  and  lives  his  primal 
forest  life  among  the  corn-cribs  and  Baldwin  ap- 
ple trees  as  of  old.  He  has  not  turned  aside  by 
one  quill's  breadth  from  his  original  wild  ways. 
He  roosts  in  the  bare  tops  of  the  apple  trees  or 
along  the  ridge-pole  of  the  barn,  as  if  the  jaguars 
and  panthers  were  still  prowling  for  him;  he  wakes 
in  the  night,  gobbles,  ducks,  and  spreads  his  round 
targe  of  a  tail  over  him  to  ward  off  the  swoop  of 
the  imaginary  owl.  He  breaks  the  hen's  egg  out 
of  jealousy,  in  order  to  prolong  the  honeymoon ; 
she  steals  her  nest  from  him  and  covers  her  eggs 
in  leaving  the  nest,  just  as  she  used  to;  and  when 
the  small  bands  of  any  neighborhood  are  gathered 
into  a  flock  to  be  driven  to  market,  as  they  still 
are  in  the  less  settled  parts,  the  old  flock-spirit 
returns  to  them,  and  they  fall  into  the  odd  migra- 
tion habits  of  their  wild  forebears,  who  used  to 
congregate  in  vast  numbers  in  the  autumn  and 
follow  the  course  of  the  river-banks,  sometimes 
across  several  States,  as  they  fed  on  the  autumn 
mast. 

The  early  accounts  of  their  hesitancy  and  in- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     1*3 

decision  when  stopped  in  their  march  by  a  river 
one  can  see  paralleled  any  winter  afternoon  on 
the  farm  when  the  turkeys  start  for  their  roost  in 
the  tree-tops.  Their  absurd  efforts  to  summon  the 
will  to  fly  —  into  the  trees,  on  to  the  fence  —  oc- 
cupied the  wild  flock  for  days  together  when  the 
flight  was  to  be  across  a  river.  On  the  other  hand 
the  wild  turkey  was  as  obstinate  and  as  "  set "  as 
it  was  indecisive.  So  is  the  tame  turkey.  One  of 
my  neighbors  missed  a  hen  turkey  for  several 
days.  Suspecting  a  stolen  nest  she  began  a  search. 
At  last  she  found  the  hen,  as  she  expected,  on  the 
nest,  but  with  wings  and  tail  hard-pressed  to  the 
earth  keeping  off  a  full-grown  skunk  that  was 
trying  to  push  under  her  for  the  eggs.  It  was 
evident  that  she  had  been  repeatedly  attacked, 
perhaps  for  the  several  days,  but,  without  food 
or  sleep,  had  kept  her  place,  beating  back  the 
spoiler  at  the  risk  of  her  own  life.  This  trait  often 
takes  a  peculiarly  irritating  turn,  as  the  farmer  well 
knows.  Some  time  ago  the  newspapers  told  the 
story  of  a  flock  of  turkeys  that  were  being  driven 
to  market  through  a  Southern  town,  when  they 
took  fright  and  flew  into  the  tops  of  tall  trees. 
There  they  stayed,  defeating  every  effort  to  bring 


WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

them  down.  The  owner,  in  despair  of  reaching 
the  market  in  time,  appealed  to  the  town  and 
sold  each  man  his  Thanksgiving  turkey  in  the 
tree,  the  purchaser  to  shoot  his  particular  bird  or 
otherwise  to  fetch  him  down. 

In  a  chapter  of  "  Winter  "  I  have  described  a 
turkey-drive  in  New  Brunswick  as  it  was  de- 
scribed to  me  by  a  friend  who  saw  it,  —  how  the 
turkeys,  suddenly  taking  a  notion  to  go  to  roost, 
flew  upon  a  little  chapel  and,  in  spite  of  the  driv- 
ers, roosted  there,  literally  covering  the  building, 
roof,  belfry,  window  ledges,  and  portico,  as  fast 
as  they  were  pushed  off  at  one  place  coming  back 
at  another. 

The  cat,  again,  is  as  wild  a  case  as  the  turkey. 
Stroke  kitty  the  wrong  way  and  she  spits.  Yet 
she  sleeps  in  the  kitchen  by  the  fire.  What  of  it  ? 
The  very  lap  of  her  mistress  has  not  counted  with 
the  cat  in  her.  The  cat  in  kitty  is  wild  to  the  tip 
of  her  twitching  tail.  Watch  her —  if  she  has  n't 
already  scratched  you  —  as,  crouched  in  the  grass, 
she  takes  her  way  toward  some  unsuspecting  bird. 
A  shiver  runs  through  you.  You  can  feel  her 
claws  —  so  tiger-like  is  she,  so  wild  and  savage, 
so  bent  on  the  kill.  Or  come  upon  her  at  dead 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     125 

of  night  in  some  empty,  dimly  lighted  alley.  She 
is  on  the  prowl.  The  light  of  the  narrow,  gulch- 
like  street  falls  on  her  with  a  startling  largeness 
and  marks  her  silent  shadow  on  the  flags.  She 
moves  stealthily  out  to  the  corner,  and,  well  within 
the  shadows,  stops  to  glance  furtively  up  and  down 
the  open  cross-street.  But  the  people  are  all  within 
the  shut  doors.  There  is  no  one  lost  on  the  streets 
for  her  to  devour. 

The  other  day  I  stood  in  the  edge  of  the  woods 
when  a  foxhound,  hot  on  the  fresh  trail,  came 
baying  through  the  trees  toward  me,  his  whole 
body  working  convulsively,  in  an  agony  of  eager- 
ness, so  absolute,  single,  and  compelling  was  his 
one  wild,  masterful  desire.  He  saw  nothing,  heard 
nothing,  because  he  was  tasting  warm  scent.  I 
spoke  to  him,  but  I  might  as  well  have  spoken 
to  a  tree.  Neither  hunger  nor  fear  could  stop  him. 
He  could  not  feel  hunger  or  fear  or  weariness. 
He  had  forgotten  utterly  —  gone  wild.  I  have 
not  infrequently  seen  the  deep-chested  foxhounds 
coursing  the  hills,  their  baying  a  wild  but  meas- 
ured and  exultant  music  rolling  through  the  hol- 
lows, and,  tagging  hopelessly  along  behind  them, 
but  yelping  and,  "ki-aiying"  to  split  their  penny- 


126     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

whistles,  a  little  fox-terrier  and  a  —  dog,  a  pa- 
thetic bundle  of  dog  that  might  once,  far  back, 
have  been  part  bull,  or  something.  But  the  little 
terrier,  and  his  companion,  the  mill-ends  mongrel, 
the  latter  domesticated  into  something  hardly  dog, 
still  had  enough  of  the  wild  in  them  to  join  the 
pack  and  run  their  little  domesticated  legs  almost 
off  in  order  to  be  in  at  the  kill.  "  Out  of  unhand- 
seled  savage  nature,  out  of  terrible  Druids  and 
Berserkers,  come  at  last  Alfred  and  Shakespeare," 
says  Emerson.  Out  of  the  wolf  at  last  has  come 
this  little  terrier  and  the  mongrel;  but  never  out 
of  them  will  wholly  be  eradicated  the  savage  and 
terrible  wolf. 

Out  of  the  wild  boar,  too,  have  come  all  the 
varieties  of  our  domestic  hogs,  and  just  as  the  wild 
boar's  progeny  are  born  to-day  with  longitudinal 
stripes  on  their  bodies,  reverting  to  some  striped 
ancestor  of  the  far  past,  so  a  litter  of  prize  Chester 
Whites,  with  pink  spots  on  their  cultivated  faces 
where  the  wild  boar's  snout  used  to  extend,  hark 
back  to  the  grizzled,  tusked  old  sire  of  the  forest 
in  so  many  of  their  pig  ways  as  quite  to  bridge 
the  gap  of  their  sojourn  in  parlor  and  pen. 

None  of  our  domestic  animals  is  milder-eyed 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     127 

or  of  a  meeker  mien  than  the  cow.  She  is  never 
abject  like  the  donkey;  but  centuries  of  gentling 
and  giving  down  have  made  her  cowlike,  until 
she  is  in  danger  of  forever  losing  her  horns.  She 
is  not  in  any  danger  of  forgetting  how  to  use 
horns,  however.  More  than  once  have  I  been 
chased  in  the  evening  by  the  cow  I  had  driven 
peacefully  to  pasture  in  the  morning.  On  one 
occasion  I  narrowly  escaped  with  my  life  from 
the  kindest  of  old  cows,  one  which  I  had  been 
driving  to  the  meadows  all  summer.  Her  new- 
born calf  was  the  trouble.  She  had  hidden  it 
among  the  mallows,  stationed  herself  near  by 
and  waited  for  me,  as  a  thousand  years  before 
she  had  waited  for  the  wolf  or  the  bear.  Her 
swift  and  unexpected  lunge  was  the  very  fury 
of  wildness. 

Little  as  domestication  has  changed  the  indi- 
vidual animal,  it  has  changed  still  less  the  animal 
group  —  the  herd,  the  flock,  the  pack.  The  spirit 
of  the  pack  and  herd  spring  from  deep  and  primal 
needs  —  common  fear,  or  hunger,  or  the  call  of 
kind  to  kind.  The  gregarious  animal  must  be 
separated  from  its  clan  to  be  domesticated.  Al- 
lowed to  return  to  the  herd  or  pack,  it  lapses 


128     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

promptly  into  the  wild  state ;  for  the  spirit  of  the 
herd  is  essentially  wild. 

Our  Western  cattle  are  none  of  them  native. 
There  is  no  wild  native  stock  except  the  bison. 
Our  cattle  are  all  European,  and  represent  centu- 
ries of  careful  breeding.  I  have  never  tried  to 
trace  their  several  lines  back  to  the  aurochs,  the 
European  bison,  —  if  they  can  be  traced,  —  but 
the  wild  blood  of  that  anarch  old  must  have 
ceased  running  in  their  veins  long,  long  ago.  Not 
so  his  spirit  in  them.  A  herd  of  heavy,  bald-faced 
Herefords,  just  beneath  their  corn-fed  coats,  may 
be  found  as  wild  and  dangerous  as  a  herd  of 
these  wild  buffalo. 

We  were  trailing  the  "  riders "  of  P  Ranch 
across  the  plains  to  a  hollow  in  the  hills  called 
the  "  Troughs,"  where  they  were  to  round  up  a 
lot  of  cattle  for  a  branding.  On  the  way  we  fell 
in  behind  a  bunch  of  some  fifty  cows  and  year- 
lings which  one  of  the  riders  had  picked  up,  and, 
while  he  dashed  off  across  the  desert  for  a  "stray," 
we  tenderfeet  drove  on  the  herd.  It  was  hot,  and 
the  cattle  lagged,  so  we  urged  them  on.  All  at 
once  I  noticed  that  the  whole  herd  was  moving 
with  a  swinging,  warping  gate,  with  switching 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     129 

tails,  and  heads  thrown  round  from  side  to  side 
as  if  every  one  of  them  were  watching  us.  We 
were  not  near  enough  to  see  their  eyes,  but  the 
rider,  far  across  the  desert,  saw  the  movement 
and  came  cutting  through  the  sage,  shouting  and 
waving  his  arms  to  stop  us.  We  had  pushed  the 
driving  too  hard.  Mutiny  was  spreading  among 
the  cattle,  already  manifest  in  a  sullen,  ugly  temper 
that  would  have  brought  the  herd  charging  us  in 
another  minute,  had  not  the  cowboy  galloped 
in  between  us  just  as  he  did  —  so  untamed,  un- 
afraid, and  instinctively  savage  is  the  spirit  of 
the  herd. 

It  is  this  herd-spirit  that  the  cowboy  on  his 
long  cross-desert  drives  to  the  railroads  most 
fears.  The  herd  is  like  a  crowd,  easily  led,  easily 
excited,  easily  stampeded,  —  when  it  becomes  a 
mob  of  frenzied  beasts,  past  all  control,  like  the 
spirit  of  the  city  "  gang  "  at  riot  in  the  streets. 

If  one  would  know  how  thin  is  the  coat  of  do- 
mestication worn  by  the  tamest  of  animals,  let 
him  ride  with  the  cattle  across  the  rim-rock  coun- 
try of  southeastern  Oregon.  No  better  chance  to 
study  the  spirit  of  the  herd  could  possibly  be 
had.  And  in  contrast  to  the  herd,  how  intelligent, 


130     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

controlled,  almost  human  seems  the  plainsman's 
horse ! 

I  share  all  the  tenderfoot's  admiration  for  the 
cowboy  and  his  "  pony."  Both  of  them  are  neces- 
sary in  bringing  a  herd  of  four  thousand  cattle 
through  from  P  Ranch  to  Winnemucca ;  and  of 
both  is  required  a  degree  of  daring  and  endur- 
ance, as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  the  wild  animal 
mind,  that  lifts  their  hard  work  into  the  heroic, 
and  makes  of  every  drive  a  sagebrush  epic  —  so 
wonderful  is  the  working  together  of  man  and 
horse,  the  centaur  come  back !  So  free  and  effect- 
ive the  body  directed  by  the  human  intelligence 
that  fills  and  rules  it  like  a  soul. 

From  P  Ranch  to  Winnemucca  is  a  seventeen- 
day  drive  through  a  desert  of  rim  rock  and  grease- 
wood  and  sage,  that,  under  the  most  favorable  of 
conditions,  is  beset  with  difficulty,  but  which  in 
the  dry  season,  and  with  a  herd  even  approach- 
ing four  thousand,  becomes  an  unbroken  hazard. 
More  than  anything  else  on  such  a  drive  is  feared 
the  wild  herd-spirit,  the  quick,  black  temper  of 
the  cattle,  that,  by  one  sign  or  another,  ever 
threatens  to  break  the  spell  of  the  riders'  power 
and  sweep  the  maddened  or  terrorized  beasts  to 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     131 

destruction.  The  handling  of  the  herd  to  keep 
this  spirit  sleeping  is  an  anxious,  and  it  may  be 
a  thrilling,  experience. 

Some  time  before  my  visit  to  P  Ranch  in  the 
summer  of  1912,  the  riders  had  taken  out  a  herd 
of  four  thousand  steers  on  what  proved  to  be  one 
of  the  most  difficult  drives  ever  made  to  Winne- 
mucca.  For  the  first  two  days  on  the  trail  the 
cattle  were  strange  to  each  other,  having  been 
gathered  from  widely  different  grazing  grounds, 
—  from  Double  O  and  the  Home  Ranch,  —  and 
were  somewhat  clannish  and  restive  under  the 
driving.  At  the  beginning  of  the  third  day  signs 
of  real  trouble  appeared.  A  shortage  of  water 
and  the  hot  weather  together  began  to  tell  on  the 
temper  of  the  herd. 

It  is  early  in  the  drive  that  the  wild  spirit 
seems  most  liable  to  break  out,  before  the  drive 
has  settled  to  its  pace  and  the  cattle  grown  ac- 
customed to  the  continuous  and  insistent  author- 
ity of  the  riders.  If  they  can  be  carried  safely 
through  the  first  three  days,  say  the  cattlemen, 
there  is  comparatively  little  danger  after  that. 

The  drive  from  the  P  Ranch  was  started  under 
ill  conditions.  The  first  two  days  were  safely 


132     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

passed,  but  the  third  day  began  ominously.  The 
line  started  forward  at  dawn,  a  hot  early  dawn, 
and  all  day  long  kept  moving,  with  the  sun  cook- 
ing the  bitter  smell  of  the  sage  into  the  air,  and 
with  sixteen  thousand  hoofs  kicking  up  a  still 
bitterer  cloud  of  alkali  dust  which  inflamed  eyes 
and  nostrils  and  coated  the  very  lungs  of  the 
cattle.  The  fierce  desert  thirst  was  upon  the 
herd  long  before  it  reached  the  creek  where  it 
was  to  bed  for  the  night.  The  heat  and  the  dust 
made  slow  work  of  the  driving,  and  it  was  already 
late  when  they  reached  the  watering  place,  only 
to  find  it  dry. 

This  was  bad.  The  men  were  tired,  but  the 
cattle  were  thirsty,  and  Wade,  the  boss  of  the 
"buckaroos,"  pushed  the  herd  on  toward  the  next 
rim  rock,  hoping  to  get  down  to  the  plain  below 
before  the  end  of  the  slow  desert  twilight.  Any- 
thing for  the  night  but  a  dry  camp ! 

They  had  hardly  started  on  when  a  whole  flank 
of  the  herd,  suddenly  breaking  away  as  if  by  pre- 
arrangement,  tore  off  through  the  brush.  The 
horses  were  as  tired  as  the  men,  and,  before  the 
chase  was  over,  the  twilight  was  gray  in  the  sage, 
making  it  necessary  to  halt  at  once  and  camp 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     133 

where  they  were.  They  would  have  to  go  with- 
out water. 

The  runaways  were  brought  up  and  the  herd 
closed  in  till  it  formed  a  circle  nearly  a  mile 
around.  This  was  as  close  as  it  could  be  drawn, 
for  the  cattle  would  not  bed  down.  They  wanted 
water  more  than  they  wanted  rest.  Their  eyes 
were  red,  their  tongues  raspy  with  thirst.  The 
situation  was  serious. 

But  camp  was  made.  Two  of  the  riders  were 
sent  back  along  the  trail  to  bring  up  the  "  drags," 
while  Wade,  with  his  other  men,  circled  the  un- 
easy cattle,  closing  them  in,  quieting  them,  and 
doing  everything  possible  to  induce  them  to  bed 
down. 

They  were  thirsty;  and,  instead  of  bedding, 
the  herd  began  to  "growl"  —  a  kind  of  stifled 
mutter  in  the  throats  of  the  cattle,  low,  rumbling, 
ominous,  as  when  faint  thunder  rolls  behind  the 
hills.  Every  plainsman  fears  the  growl,  for  it  usu- 
ally is  a  prelude  to  the  "  milling,"  as  it  proved  to 
be  now,  when  the  whole  vast  herd  began  to  stir 
—  slowly,  singly  at  first  and  without  direction, 
till  at  length  it  moved  together,  round  and  round, 
a  great  compact  circle,  the  multitude  of  clicking 


134     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

hoofs,  of  clashing  horns  and  chafing  sides  sound- 
ing not  unlike  the  rushing  of  rain  across  a  field 
of  corn. 

Nothing  could  be  worse  for  them,  for  it  would 
only  add  to  their  heat  and  thirst.  The  cooler  twi- 
light was  falling,  but,  mingling  with  it,  rose  and 
thickened  and  spread  the  choking  dust  that  soon 
covered  the  cattle  and  shut  out  all  but  the  dark 
wall  of  the  herd  from  sight. 

Slowly,  evenly,  swung  the  wall,  round  and 
round,  without  a  break.  I  have  never  seen  a  mill- 
ing herd  and  I  can  scarcely  imagine  its  suppressed 
excitement,  the  waking,  the  stirring  of  four  thou- 
sand wild  spirits !  To  keep  this  excitement  in 
check  was  the  problem  of  Wade  and  his  men. 
And  the  night  had  not  yet  begun. 

When  the  two  riders  had  brought  in  the  drags, 
and  the  chuck-wagon  had  lumbered  up  with  sup- 
per, Wade  set  the  first  watch. 

Along  with  the  wagon  had  come  the  fresh 
horses — one  of  them  being  Peroxide  Jim,  a  sup- 
ple, powerful,  clean-limbed  buckskin,  a  horse,  I 
think,  that  had  as  fine  and  intelligent  an  animal- 
face  as  any  creature  I  ever  saw.  Wade  had  been 
saving  this  horse  for  emergency  work.  And  why 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     135 

should  he  not  have  been  saved  fresh  for  just  such 
a  need  as  this  *?  Are  there  not  superior  horses  as 
well  as  superior  men  —  a  Peroxide  Jim  to  com- 
plement a  Wade  ? 

The  horse  knew  the  cattle  business  and  knew 
his  rider  perfectly ;  and  though  there  was  nothing 
like  sentiment  about  the  boss  of  the  P  Ranch 
riders,  his  faith  in  Peroxide  Jim  was  complete. 

The  other  night-horses  were  saddled  and  tied 
to  the  wheels  of  the  wagon.  It  was  Wade's  cus- 
tom to  take  his  turn  with  the  second  watch;  but, 
shifting  his  saddle  to  Peroxide  Jim  when  supper 
was  over,  he  rode  out  with  the  four  of  the  first 
watch,  who,  more  or  less  evenly  spaced,  were 
quietly  circling  the  herd. 

The  night,  for  this  part  of  the  high  desert,  was 
unusually  warm.  It  was  close,  still,  and  without 
a  sky.  The  near,  thick  darkness  blotted  out  the 
stars.  There  is  usually  a  breeze  at  night  over  these 
highest  rim-rock  plains,  that,  no  matter  how  hot 
the  day,  crowds  the  cattle  together  for  warmth. 
To-night  not  a  breath  stirred  the  sage  as  Wade 
wound  in  and  out  among  the  bushes,  the  hot 
dust  stinging  his  eyes  and  caking  rough  on  his 
skin. 


136     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

Round  and  round  rode  the  riders;  round  and 
round  moved  the  weaving,  shifting  forms  of  the 
cattle,  out  of  the  dark  and  into  the  dark,  a  gray 
spectral  line  like  a  procession  of  ghosts,  or  some 
morris  dance  of  the  desert's  sheeted  dead.  But  it 
was  not  a  line,  it  was  a  sea  of  forms;  not  a  proces- 
sion, but  the  even  surging  of  a  maelstrom  of  hoofs 
a  mile  around. 

Wade  galloped  out  on  the  plain  for  a  breath 
of  air  and  a  look  at  the  sky.  If  it  would  only 
rain !  A  quick,  cold  rain  would  quiet  them ;  but 
there  was  no  feel  of  rain  in  the  darkness,  no  smell 
of  it  on  the  air ;  only  the  powdery  taste  of  the 
bitter  sage. 

The  desert,  where  the  herd  was  camped,  was 
one  of  the  highest  of  a  series  of  tablelands,  or 
benches;  it  lay  as  level  as  a  floor,  rimmed  by 
sheer  rock,  from  which  there  was  a  drop  to  the 
bench  of  sage  below.  The  herd  when  overtaken 
by  the  dusk  had  been  headed  for  a  pass  descend- 
ing to  the  next  lower  bench,  but  was  now  halted 
within  a  mile  of  the  rim  rock  on  the  east,  where 
there  was  a  perpendicular  fall  of  about  three  hun- 
dred feet. 

It  was  the  last  place  an  experienced  plainsman 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     137 

would  have  chosen  for  a  camp ;  and  every  time 
Wade  circled  the  herd,  and  came  in  between  the 
cattle  and  the  rim,  he  felt  the  nearness  of  the 
precipice.  The  darkness  helped  to  bring  it  near. 
The  height  of  his  horse  brought  it  near  —  he 
seemed  to  look  down  from  his  saddle  over  it, 
into  its  dark  depths.  The  herd  in  its  milling  was 
surely  warping  slowly  in  the  direction  of  the  rim. 
But  this  must  be  all  fancy  —  the  trick  of  the  dark 
and  of  nerves,  if  a  plainsman  has  nerves. 

At  twelve  o'clock  the  first  guard  came  in  and 
woke  the  second  squad.  Wade  had  been  in  the 
saddle  since  dawn,  but  as  this  second  was  his  reg- 
ular watch  he  stayed  in  the  saddle.  More  than 
that,  his  trained  ear  had  timed  the  milling  hoofs. 
The  movement  of  the  herd  had  quickened. 

If  now  he  could  keep  them  going,  and  could 
prevent  their  taking  any  sudden  fright!  They 
must  not  stop  until  they  stopped  from  utter 
weariness.  Safety  lay  in  their  continued  motion. 
So  the  fresh  riders  flanked  them  closely,  paced 
them,  and  urged  them  quietly  on.  They  must  be 
kept  milling  and  they  must  be  kept  from  fright. 

In  the  taut  silence  of  the  stirless  desert  night, 
with  the  tension  of  the  herd  at  the  snapping-point, 


138     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

any  quick,  unwonted  sight  or  sound  would  stam- 
pede them.  The  sneezing  of  a  horse,  the  flare  of 
a  match,  would  be  enough  to  send  the  whole  four 
thousand  headlong  —  blind,  frenzied,  trampling 
—  till  spent  and  scattered  over  the  plain. 

And  so,  as  he  rode,  Wade  began  to  sing.  The 
rider  ahead  of  him  took  up  the  air  and  passed  it 
on  until,  above  the  stepping  stir  of  the  hoofs  rose 
the  faint  voices  of  the  men,  and  all  the  herd  was 
bound  about  by  the  slow  plaintive  measures  of 
some  old  song.  It  was  not  to  soothe  their  savage 
breasts  that  the  riders  sang  to  the  cattle,  but  rather 
to  preempt  the  dreaded  silence,  to  relieve  the 
tension,  and  so  to  prevent  the  shock  of  any  sud- 
den startling  noise. 

So  they  sang  and  rode  and  the  night  wore  on 
to  one  o'clock,  when  Wade,  coming  up  on  the 
rim-rock  side,  felt  a  cool  breeze  fan  his  face,  and 
caught  a  breath  of  fresh,  moist  wind  with  the 
taste  of  water  in  it. 

He  checked  his  horse  instantly,  listening  as  the 
wind  swept  past  him  over  the  cattle.  But  they 
must  already  have  smelled  it,  for  they  had  ceased 
their  milling,  the  whole  herd  standing  motionless, 
the  indistinct  forms  close  to  him  in  the  dark  show- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     139 

ing  their  bald  faces  lifted  to  drink  the  sweet  wet 
breath  that  came  over  the  rim.  Then  they  started 
on  again,  but  faster,  and  with  a  rumbling  now 
from  their  hoarse  throats  that  tightened  Wade's 
grip  on  the  reins. 

The  sound  seemed  to  come  out  of  the  earth,  a 
low,  rumbling  mumble,  as  dark  as  the  night  and 
as  wide  as  the  plain,  a  thick,  inarticulate  bellow 
that  stood  every  rider  stiff  in  his  stirrups. 

But  how  dark  was  the  night,  and  how  thick 
the  smother  of  dust !  Nothing  could  be  seen;  and 
the  hoarse,  choking  bellow  of  the  herd,  as  thick 
as  the  dark  and  the  dust,  made  all  other  sounds 
impossible  to  hear. 

Then  the  breeze  caught  the  dust  and  carried 
it  back  from  the  gray-coated,  ghostly  shapes,  and 
Wade  saw  that  the  animals  were  still  moving  in 
a  circle.  He  must  keep  them  going.  He  touched 
his  horse  to  ride  on  with  them,  when  across  the 
black  sky  flashed  a  vivid  streak  of  lightning. 

There  was  a  snort  from  the  steers,  a  quick  clap 
of  horns  and  hoofs  from  far  within  the  herd,  a 
tremor  of  the  plain,  a  roar,  a  surging  mass  —  and 
Wade  was  riding  the  flank  of  a  wild  stampede. 
Before  him,  behind  him,  beside  him,  pressing  hard 


140     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

upon  his  horse,  galloped  the  frenzied  steers,  and 
beyond  them  a  multitude  borne  on,  and  bearing 
him  on,  by  the  heave  of  the  galloping  herd. 

Wade  was  riding  for  his  life.  He  knew  it.  His 
horse  knew  it.  He  was  riding  to  turn  the  herd, 
too,  back  from  the  rim,  as  the  horse  also  knew. 
The  cattle  were  after  water  —  water-mad  —  ready 
to  go  over  the  precipice  to  get  it,  carrying  horse 
and  rider  with  them.  Wade  was  the  only  rider 
between  the  herd  and  the  rim.  It  was  black  as 
death.  He  could  see  nothing  in  the  sage,  could 
scarcely  discern  the  pounding,  panting  shadows 
at  his  side.  He  knew  that  he  was  being  borne  to- 
ward the  rim,  how  fast  he  could  not  tell,  but  he 
knew  by  the  swish  of  the  brush  against  his  tapa- 
deros  and  the  plunging  of  the  horse  that  the 
ground  was  growing  stonier,  that  they  were  near- 
ing  the  rocks. 

To  outrun  the  herd  was  his  only  chance  for 
life.  If  he  could  come  up  with  the  leaders  he 
might  not  only  escape,  but  even  stand  a  chance 
of  heading  them  off  upon  the  plain  and  saving 
the  herd.  There  were  cattle  still  ahead  of  him  ; 
how  many,  what  part  of  them  all,  he  could  not 
make  out  in  the  dark.  But  the  horse  knew.  The 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     141 

reins  hung  on  his  straight  neck,  where  his  rider 
had  dropped  them,  as,  yelling  and  firing  over  the 
wild  herd,  he  had  given  this  horse  the  race  to  win, 
to  lose. 

They  were  riding  the  rim.  Close  on  their  left 
bore  down  the  flank  of  the  herd,  and  on  their 
right,  under  their  very  feet,  was  a  precipice,  so 
close  that  they  felt  its  blackness  —  its  three  hun- 
dred feet  of  fall ! 

Suddenly  they  veered  and  went  high  in  the 
air,  as  a  steer  plunged  headlong  into  a  draw  al- 
most beneath  their  feet.  They  cleared  the  narrow 
ravine,  landed  on  bare  rock  and  reeled  on. 

A  piercing,  half-human  bawl  of  terror  told 
where  one  of  the  animals  had  been  crowded  over. 
Would  the  next  leap  carry  them  after  him?  Then 
Wade  found  himself  racing  neck  and  neck  with 
a  big  white  steer,  which  the  horse,  with  marvelous 
instinct,  seemed  to  pick  out  from  a  bunch,  and  to 
cling  to,  forcing  him  gradually  ahead,  till,  cutting 
him  free  from  the  bunch  entirely,  he  bore  him  off 
into  the  swishing  sage. 

The  steers  coming  on  close  behind  followed 
their  leader,  and  in,  after  them,  swung  others. 
The  tide  was  turning  from  the  rim.  More  and 


142     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

more  were  veering,  and  within  a  short  time  the 
whole  herd,  bearing  off  from  the  cliffs,  was  pound- 
ing over  the  open  plains. 

Whose  race  was  it?  It  was  Peroxide  Jim's, 
according  to  Wade,  for  not  by  word  or  by  touch 
of  hand  or  knee  had  the  horse  been  directed  in 
the  run.  From  the  flash  of  the  lightning  the  horse 
had  taken  the  bit,  had  covered  an  indescribably 
perilous  path  at  top  speed,  had  outrun  the  herd 
and  turned  it  from  the  edge  of  the  rim  rock,  with- 
out a  false  step  or  a  tremor  of  fear. 

Bred  on  the  desert,  broken  at  the  round-up, 
trained  to  think  steer  as  his  rider  thinks  it,  the 
horse  knew  as  swiftly,  as  clearly  as  his  rider,  the 
work  before  him.  And  he  knew  how  to  do  it,  or 
could  see  in  the  dark  how  to  do  it,  far  better  than 
his  rider.  But  that  he  kept  himself  from  fright, 
that  none  of  the  wild  herd-madness  passed  into 
him,  is  a  thing  for  great  wonder.  He  was  as  thirsty 
as  any  of  the  herd ;  he  knew  his  own  peril,  per- 
haps, as  none  of  the  herd  had  ever  known  any- 
thing; and  yet,  such  coolness,  courage,  wisdom, 
and  power! 

Or  was  it  only  training  ?  More  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  the  man  on  his  back,  and  so,  a  further 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  HERD     143 

remove  from  the  wild  thing  which  domestication 
does  not  seem  to  touch  ?  Or  was  it  all  sugges- 
tion, the  superior  intelligence  above  riding,  not 
the  flesh,  but  the  spirit  *? 


VII 

THE  BUTTERFLIES  OF   MOUNT  HOOD 


VII 
THE  BUTTERFLIES  OF  MOUNT  HOOD 

'ow  often  one  becomes  the  victim  of 
one's  special  interests !  I  climbed  to 
the  peak  of  Hood,  looked  down 
upon  Oregon  and  into  her  neighbor 
States,  saw  Shasta  far  off  to  the 
south,  and  Rainier  far  off  to  the  north,  and  then 
descended,  thinking  and  wondering  more  about 
a  flock  of  little  butterflies  that  were  wavering 
about  the  summit  than  about  the  overpower- 
ing panorama  of  river  and  plain  and  mountain- 
range  that  had  been  spread  so  far  beneath  me. 
Or  was  I  the  victim,  rather,  of  my  inheritance  ? 
Was  it  because  I  happened  to  be  born,  not  on  a 
mountain-peak  eleven  thousand  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  feet  above  the  sea,  but  in  a  sandy 
field  at  sea-level  ?  I  was  born  in  a  field  bordering 
a  meadow  whose  grasses  ran  soon  into  sedges  and 
then  into  the  reeds  of  a  river  that  flowed  into  the 
bay;  and  I  found  myself  on  the  summit  of  Hood 


i48     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

dazed  and  almost  incapable  of  great  emotion.  So 
I  watched  the  butterflies. 

Or  was  it  that  I  lacked  training?  Might  one 
not  need  to  climb  Hood  many  times  for  the  eyes 
to  grow  used  to  seeing  and  the  soul  to  feeling 
such  unwonted  vastness  of  expanse,  such  unac- 
customed and  overwhelming  depths  ?  I  have 
tried  a  hundred  times  to  recall  the  emotion  of  my 
first  moment  on  the  summit,  and  either  I  had 
none,  or  what  I  had  was  an  utter  weariness  of 
body  and  a  depression  of  spirit  due  to  a  sense 
of  my  inability  to  meet  the  moment  emotionally. 
I  felt  in  spirit  as  I  felt  in  body,  the  body  perhaps 
having  much  to  do  with  the  spirit. 

We  started  before  seven  o'clock  from  Cloud  Cap 
Inn  and  reached  the  summit  a  little  past  noon,  a 
steady  half-day  of  climb,  climb,  climb,  the  last  four 
thousand  feet  zigzagging  across  the  steep  flank 
of  a  glacier,  the  last  eighteen  hundred  feet  by  the 
help  of  a  rope  from  the  summit  up  the  sheer  ice 
wall  to  the  peak.  I  reached  the  rim  of  the  crater 
exhausted.  Two  other  strong  men  of  the  party 
came  over  the  rim  sick.  We  had  a  professional 
mountain-climber  with  us  who  was  fresh  from 
the  Canadian  Rockies  and  who  had  come  to  the 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     149 

Rockies  directly  from  the  Swiss  Alps.  He  and 
the  guide  arrived  at  the  top  physically  capable 
of  looking  at  the  scene;  but  the  guide  did  not 
care  to  look,  climbing  Hood  being  a  business 
with  him ;  and  the  professional  climber  (whose 
business  was  breaking  records)  was  too  disgusted 
at  the  wretched  time  he  had  made,  tied  up  to  us, 
to  look  at  anything,  and  was  for  starting  down 
at  once,  alone  if  the  guide  would  let  him,  to  try 
yet  for  a  record  round-trip.  So  here  we  were  un- 
done, indifferent,  disgusted,  while  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  and  the  glory  of  them  lay  spread  out 
beneath  us  —  and  flitting  round  about  us  a  host 
of  little  butterflies. 

The  day  was  clear  and  cool,  with  a  stiff  wind 
blowing  across  the  summit  that  made  our  teeth 
chatter  and  sent  us  skulking  behind  the  lumps 
of  slag  to  get  out  of  its  way.  Long  before  we 
reached  the  top  heavy  gaseous  fumes  began  to 
pour  down  upon  us  as  the  draft  drew  over  the 
rim  of  the  crater.  The  wind  seemed  to  clear  them 
from  the  immediate  top,  but,  looking  down  into 
the  great  pit,  we  could  see  a  rising  cloud  of  steam 
that  must  have  carried  them  in  its  vaporous  folds 
up  out  of  the  heated  depths  where  the  ancient 


150     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

fires  were  still  smouldering.  Hood  is  a  burned-out 
volcano,  as  is  every  cone  in  the  Cascade  Range, 
whose  fires  were  blazing  throughout  the  middle 
epochs  of  the  Tertiary  Period,  whose  lava-flows 
now  spread  as  sage  plains  all  over  eastern  Oregon 
where  the  stratified  ash  and  tuff  lie  three  to  four 
thousand  feet  deep.  The  Oligocene  epochs  of 
those  flaming  fires  passed  into  the  Miocene,  the 
Miocene  into  the  Pliocene,  when  the  Tertiary 
Period  gave  place  to  the  Quaternary  with  its 
Pleistocene  epoch  of  Glacial  and  Interglacial 
stages,  which,  in  turn,  passed  into  our  present 
epoch;  and  still  the  walls  of  Hood  retain  their 
heat;  and  still  the  vapors  rise  and  pour  through 
the  rifted  rim  of  the  crater  down  over  those  glacial 
snows  that  lie  unmelted  on  the  summit. 

The  topmost  point  of  Hood  is  a  jagged  piece 
of  yellow  igneous  rock  or  slag,  soft,  sulphurous, 
with  the  smell  of  the  volcanic  fires  still  strong 
upon  it.  Originally  a  part  of  the  crater  wall,  it  is 
now  but  a  weathered  fragment  poised  on  a  pin- 
nacle left  by  the  caving  of  the  rest  of  the  rim  into 
the  cavity  of  the  crater.  The  summit  is  thus  a 
point,  an  apex,  one  of  the  few  high  peaks  of  the 
world  upon  which  you  can  stand,  and,  without 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     151 

moving  from  your  position,  box  the  compass 
with  the  landscape,  the  whole  world  lying  di- 
rectly beneath  you  and  rounding  out  to  an 
unbroken  horizon  that  girdles  the  globe. 

And  away  up  here  above  the  world,  here  over 
the  eternal  snows,  here  in  the  fumes  of  old  vol- 
canic fires,  hovered  a  host  of  black  and  red 
butterflies.  It  was  an  amazing  sight.  I  was  pre- 
pared for  hailstones  and  coals  of  fire,  for  seismic 
shocks  and  slides  and  booming  avalanches,  but 
not  for  butterflies. 

Cloud  Cap  Inn,  our  starting-point  that  morn- 
ing, is  on  the  edge  of  the  tree-line.  We  passed 
immediately  into  the  Alpine  zone  on  leaving  the 
Inn,  a  few  flattened,  twisted  pines  accompanying 
us  for  a  distance,  a  few  Alpine-Arctic  flowers 
going  on  with  us  almost  to  the  stony  shoulder 
of  Barrett's  Spur,  some  four  thousand  feet  from 
the  summit.  But  here  all  life  seemed  to  stop. 
The  Spur  rises  between  the  two  great  glaciers  of 
this  side  of  the  mountain,  separating  them  at  right 
angles.  It  is  a  high  pile  of  broken  rock,  so  utterly 
devoid  of  soil  that  life  could  scarcely  find  a  foot- 
ing here,  were  it  able  to  climb  so  high ;  but  the 
white  lupine,  the  flat  pussypaws,  the  low  purple 


152     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

heather,  and  the  purple  matted  beard-tongue  could 
not  reach  the  crest  of  the  Spur.  The  beard-tongue 
outclimbed  the  others.  It  was  the  last  living  thing 
that  we  saw  until  we  reached  the  summit,  except 
some  flies  that  were  sunning  themselves  at  Tie- 
up  Rock,  nearly  a  thousand  feet  above  the  Spur. 
The  rapid  dwarfing  of  the  beard-tongue  as  we 
ascended  was  eloquent  of  the  reach  and  grip  of 
life.  When  the  little  clusters  or  colonies  could 
no  longer  hold  on  in  the  open,  they  took  to  hiding 
behind  the  pieces  of  rock,  the  last  of  them  seeking 
the  shelter  of  the  north  sides,  where,  huddled  back 
from  the  blight  of  the  noonday  sun  and  the  sweep 
of  the  blasting  winds,  they  found  a  slightly  moister 
soil  and  a  temperature  a  few  degrees  more  equa- 
ble, the  meager  means  of  a  last  desperate  effort 
for  a  highest-up.  Then  the  small  shadows  failed, 
and  we  climbed  on  alone. 

It  is  an  impressive  thing  to  leave  all  life  be- 
neath you,  to  pass  from  zone  to  zone  witnessing 
the  changes  in  the  forms  and  the  modes  of  living 
things  as  you  ascend,  but  still  with  life  about  you, 
until  you  find  yourself  in  the  presence  of  an  all- 
pervading  death.  The  very  sun  has  changed.  You 
have  come  within  the  veil,  up  through  the  screen 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     153 

that  breaks  the  fierce  light  into  the  prismatic 
colors  of  life,  and  the  white  rays  now  blind  your 
eyes  and  blister  the  skin  of  your  face  and  hands. 
The  air  is  lighter  in  your  lungs;  the  cold  is  keen 
and  constant;  the  look  of  all  things  strange  and 
unfriendly. 

This  leaving  of  life  is  so  real  an  experience,  as 
the  climber  watches  the  shapeless,  diminishing 
trees,  the  vanishing  ground  squirrels,  and  the  last 
flattened  flowers,  dwarfed  to  nothing  but  root  and 
blossom  before  they  are  blotted  out,  that  he  can 
scarcely  get  up  to  Barrett's  Spur  without  feeling 
the  presence  of  death,  a  consciousness  deepened 
from  here  on  by  the  extreme  narrowness  of  the 
footing  and  the  utter  withdrawal  of  space  from 
about  him,  space  that  in  the  crowded  valleys  of 
life  he  had  been  used  to  leaning  upon. 

From  the  Spur  to  Tie-up  Rock  our  path  was  a 
narrow  back  that  divided  the  two  glaciers.  At  Tie- 
up  Rock  we  were  belted  and  fastened  together 
and  roped  to  the  guide,  who  now  led  us  out  upon 
the  steep  snows  that  reached  up  and  up  to  the 
summit,  towering,  as  it  seemed,  almost  straight 
overhead. 

The  climb  was  without  accident,  and  as  moun- 


154     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

taineering  goes,  according  to  the  professional 
climber,  who  was  last  in  the  string,  beautiful 
enough,  but  rather  tame. 

For  all  of  that  there  was  one  place  in  the  climb 
that  gave  me  a  shudder,  and  one  moment  of 
thrill,  when  even  the  professional  climber  turned 
pale.  We  had  ascended  perhaps  a  thousand  feet 
above  Tie-up  Rock  when  we  came  to  a  crevasse 
across  the  glacier.  It  was  a  yawning  gap,  as  clean 
as  some  awful  knife-wound  through  the  blue  ice, 
and,  illumined  by  the  sunlight,  which  at  that 
moment  shot  straight  down  its  unearthly  walls, 
revealed,  as  not  even  the  heights  above  us  could, 
the  grip  of  the  cold,  the  depth  of  the  death  that 
lies  upon  the  world.  And  ten  or  twelve  feet  down, 
taut  from  solid  wall  to  wall  across  the  crevasse, 
stretched  a  stout  hemp  rope  —  a  human  thing 
frozen  into  this  eternal  pit !  The  sight  of  it,  so 
unexpected,  mysterious,  and  horribly  significant, 
was  shocking.  But  it  proved  to  be  only  the  rope 
which  the  guides  had  left  hanging  from  the  sum- 
mit the  summer  before.  It  had  been  buried  to  this 
depth  during  the  winter,  and  with  slack  enough  at 
this  place  to  stretch  without  snapping  when  the  ice 
split  and  the  crevasse  opened  across  the  glacier. 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     155 

Working  round  the  crevasse,  we  kept  on  till 
we  reached  the  new  rope  dropped  down  to  us 
eighteen  hundred  feet  from  the  peak.  Here  we 
stuck  our  pikes  into  the  snow,  breathed  ourselves 
for  a  minute,  and  laid  hold  on  the  rope.  As  we 
did  so,  a  piece  of  rock,  about  the  size  of  a  large 
waterpail,  was  dislodged  from  the  summit  and 
started  down  the  sheer  slope  straight  at  us.  It  was 
dropping  down  the  steps  cut  by  the  last  climbers 
to  reach  the  peak,  a  path  as  straight  to  us  as  the 
rope  could  fall.  Gripping  the  rope  we  swung  to 
one  side,  watching  the  wild  thing  as  it  came 
plunging,  bounding  at  us  with  incredible  speed, 
ready  to  dodge  should  it  fly  at  our  heads.  It  was 
a  fearful  quarter-minute.  Down  it  came,  straight 
at  its  mark,  leaping  faster,  farther,  higher  with 
every  spring  from  the  snow.  Down  straight  at  us 
it  tore,  struck  just  in  front  of  us,  ripped  past  with 
a  wicked  whiz,  hit  a  hundred  feet  below  us, 
sprang  madly  into  the  air,  and,  like  a  bolt,  was 
gone. 

Then  the  real  work  of  the  climb  began,  and  to 
it  was  added  this  new  alarm  of  rolling  rocks.  I 
had  grown  by  this  time  quite  familiar  with  the 
fear  of  falling,  and  had  ceased  to  mind  it;  but  I 


156     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

had  had  no  practice  in  dodging  rocks.  To  be 
sandbagged  on  the  level  is  a  risk  that  I  have  been 
indifferent  to  these  many  years;  to  be  knocked  on 
the  head  by  a  ricochetting  rock,  however,  with 
ten  thousand  feet  to  fall,  disturbed  me  consider- 
ably. But  the  guide  thought  nothing  of  it.  The 
incident  apparently  left  no  impression  upon  him. 
He  was  used  to  flying  rocks.  He  was  used  to 
this  particular  climb,  too.  How  easily,  surely  he 
moved !  If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over  again,  I 
thought,  I  would  be  a  climber  of  mountain-peaks 
—  so  superior  did  he  seem !  So  admirable  is  any 
sort  of  mastery !  And  how  carefully  he  moved ! 
kicking  the  niche  for  his  toe,  or  cutting  the  step 
into  the  ice  with  all  deliberateness,  giving  me 
time  to  jack  my  feet  up  and  fix  them  where  his 
had  been.  Still  the  rope  that  fastened  me  to  him 
was  continually  taut;  I  was  loaded  with  lead. 
Then  the  man  behind  me  groaned  and  stopped. 
I  reached  back,  took  his  camera  —  and  it  was 
lead,  solid  lead.  Then  the  man  behind  him  groaned 
and  stopped,  seized  with  nausea.  But  the  line 
crawled  on  up,  up,  up,  through  a  gateway  of 
snow  to  the  bare  rock  of  the  summit. 

The  experience  was  worth  while;  and  the  view, 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     157 

though  too  vast,  too  complete,  too  sublime  for 
the  heart  to  hold,  was  worth  the  climb,  and  more. 
I  doubt  if  a  few  thousand  extra  feet  —  the  height 
of  Mont  Blanc  or  Denali  —  could  add  anything 
to  the  prospect  from  Hood.  The  consciousness 
of  such  heights  might  deepen  one's  sense  of  awe 
and  terror,  but  could  only  blur  the  earth  below 
and  leave  one  cut  off  as  a  thing  of  clay  among 
the  clouds. 

So  I  felt  even  on  the  top  of  Hood  until  I  saw 
the  butterflies.  And  what  a  relief,  what  a  surprise 
to  see  Vanessa  calif ornica  flitting  about  the  peak  of 
Hood !  I  could  have  fallen  off  for  astonishment ! 
I  had  not  seen  the  butterflies  at  first.  Not  until  the 
keen,  cutting  wind  drove  us  to  shelter  behind  the 
rocks  did  I  notice  the  tiny  creatures  winging  past. 

We  were  sitting  where  we  could  look  into  the 
crater  on  the  one  side,  and  where,  directly  beneath 
us,  we  could  see  clear  down  the  wall  with  the  rope, 
to  the  glacier  and  the  trail  over  which  we  had 
come.  At  our  feet  was  a  small  gully,  a  kind  of 
flue  in  the  crater-wall.  The  draft  pulled  hard  in 
every  direction  among  the  gaps  and  cuts  of  the 
rocks,  but  hardest  up  this  flue  or  chimney.  The 
butterflies  seemed  to  be  ascending  the  mountain, 


158     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

coming  over  the  summit  by  way  of  the  flue,  using 
the  draft,  as  we  had  used  the  rope. 

But  they  were  not  ascending  the  mountain; 
they  were  merely  flitting  about  over  the  sum- 
mit, as  if  the  height  were  home  to  them.  When 
they  had  come — how  long  they  had  been  there  — 
how  long  they  stayed  —  I  should  like  to  know. 
Why  they  had  come  and  what  they  were  doing, 
however,  I  think  I  do  know,  though  it  may  seem 
quite  past  belief  at  such  a  height,  amid  the  eter- 
nal snows,  with  noxious  fumes  filling  the  air,  and 
a  wind  blowing  across  the  peak  that,  as  soon  as 
the  sun  was  set,  would  stop  the  beat  of  a  stouter 
heart  than  a  butterfly's.  The  fragile  creatures  had 
sailed  to  the  summit  of  Hood  to  play;  and  here 
they  were  at  their  sport  as  truly  as  children  may 
be  seen  at  theirs  in  the  school-yard. 

It  was  their  regular  passing  at  a  certain  dis- 
tance from  me,  and  their  disappearance  in  a  cer- 
tain direction,  that  aroused  my  curiosity.  And 
the  number  of  them !  and  that  all  were  coming 
up,  none  going  down !  — all  of  them  appearing  to 
shoot  up  through  the  little  gully  or  cut  be- 
tween the  rocks  and  to  bear  off  to  the  right  over 
the  crater !  What  did  it  mean  ? 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     159 

Scrambling  to  the  top  of  the  rock  behind 
which  I  was  resting,  and  where  I  could  get  a  sur- 
vey all  around,  I  saw  that  the  peak  was  alive 
with  butterflies ;  that  they  were  flying  past  my 
head,  and  off  over  the  point  out  of  sight  around 
the  walls,  to  reappear  far  down  in  the  crater, 
across  which  they  were  cutting  to  my  side  where, 
caught  in  the  draft,  they  were  pulled  up  the  flue, 
up  and  past  my  head  again,  off  over  the  point 
out  of  sight  to  reappear  again,  far  down  below, 
for  another  turn  with  their  toboggan  on  the  slide 
of  the  draft  that  drew  up  past  us  over  the 
summit. 

Not  all  of  them  were  in  the  game;  I  caught 
two  as  they  sunned  themselves  on  the  rocks; 
but  that  all  had  played,  or  would  join  the  fun, 
and  that  all  had  come  up  for  that  purpose,  I 
have  no  doubt. 

Yet  my  reader  may  have  doubts.  Then  let  him 
explain  the  case.  We  are  quite  likely  to  over- 
look the  extent  and  seriousness  of  wild  animal 
play;  not  so  much  overlook  it,  perhaps,  as  fail  to 
see  it,  so  self-conscious  and  on  guard  is  all  wild 
life  in  the  presence  of  a  human  watcher.  Self-aban- 
donment is  a  necessary  condition  of  real  play,  and 


160    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

among  the  wild  animals  unconsciousness  even  of 

o 

observation  seems  a  necessity,  which  accounts 
largely  for  our  fleeting  and  infrequent  glimpses 
of  this  side  of  wild  life,  so  seldom  can  we  get 
close  enough  to  watch  the  play  of  a  wild  creature 
without  exciting  alarm.  But  wild  life  is  not  all 
watchfulness  and  fear;  there  is  a  time  for  play 
in  the  soberest,  somberest  of  wild  lives.  The  ani- 
mals play  joyously,  keenly,  seriously,  desperately 
even,  as  college  boys  play  desperately  at  foot- 
ball, and  old  men  seriously  at  solitaire ;  for  kill- 
ing time  is  a  serious  business,  and  killing  your 
rival  in  football  is  certainly  desperate  enough. 

I  have  watched  a  great  ungainly  hippopotamus 
solemnly  trying  to  kill  time  by  cuffing  a  croquet 
ball  back  and  forth  from  one  end  of  his  cage  to 
the  other.  His  keeper  told  me,  that,  without 
the  plaything,  the  caged  giant  would  fret  and 
worry  himself  to  death.  It  was  his  game  of  soli- 
taire. This  play  of  the  butterflies  was  nothing  if 
not  joyous,  yet  there  was  something  fearful  and 
desperate  in  the  choice  of  the  peak  for  the  game. 

In  all  their  games  of  rivalry,  which  seem  to  be 
mimic  warfare,  the  animals  are  as  serious  as  hu- 
mans, and,  forgetting  the  fun,  often  fall  to  fighting. 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     161 

Only  this  morning,  the  whole  flock  of  chickens 
in  the  hen-yard  started  suddenly  on  the  wild  flap 
to  see  which  would  beat  to  the  back  fence,  and 
wound  up  at  the  "tape  "  in  a  free  fight,  two  of 
the  cockerels  tearing  the  feathers  from  each  other 
in  a  desperate  set-to. 

You  have  seen  puppies  fall  out  in  the  same 
human  fashion,  and  kittens  also,  and  other  folk 
as  well.  I  have  seen  a  game  of  wood  tag  among 
friendly  gray  squirrels  come  to  a  finish  in  a  free 
fight.  As  the  crows  pass  over  during  the  winter 
afternoon  you  will  notice  their  play,  —  racing 
each  other  through  the  air,  diving,  swooping, 
cawing  in  their  fun,  when,  suddenly,  some  one's 
temper  snaps,  and  there  is  a  general  mix-up  in 
the  air.  I  watched  the  butterflies  for  such  evi- 
dences of  temper  and  individuality,  but  saw  no- 
thing like  recognition  of  each  other  among  them, 
no  communication  of  any  sort,  no  initiative  ex- 
cept as  one  would  turn  aside  from  his  play  to 
light  for  a  sip  of  snow  or  a  moment  of  rest  in 
the  sun.  Yet  I  have  seen  angry  butterflies,  one 
mourning-cloak  (Vanessa  antiopa)  putting  a  whole 
stumpful  to  flight  by  dashing  in  among  them. 
Here  on  the  peak  there  must  have  been  some 


162     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

flock-consciousness,  sight  or  scent  or  other  kind 
of  communication.  Certain  butterflies  flock  and 
migrate  together  with  as  evident  a  plan  and 
agreement  as  the  flocking  birds  have ;  but  for  the 
most  part  they  are  solitary  creatures.  Did  they 
come  singly  to  the  summit  of  Hood,  without 
agreement  and  without  purpose,  each  one  flying 
up  and  up,  in  a  blind  attempt  to  scale  the  op- 
posing wall  and  so  reaching  the  top  *?  Then  why 
did  they  not  pass  over  and  down?  Why  did 
they  stay  ?  Whatever  be  the  right  guess,  it  was 
surely  not  for  food  that  they  congregated  here. 

I  think  they  came  to  play,  and  that  they  came, 
perhaps,  "by  forewardandbycomposicioun."  For 
the  love  of  play  is  much  more  compelling  in 
animal  life  than  we  imagine.  The  lack  of  laughter 
alone  distinguishes  animal  play  from  ours.  We 
climbed  the  peak  for  play  —  the  guide  alone  for 
money ;  and  I  don't  remember  that  one  of  us  so 
much  as  smiled  during  the  time  we  spent  on  the 
summit.  How  did  we  differ  from  the  butterflies '? 
The  animals  have  no  sense  of  humor.  From  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  they  show  the  keenest  joy 
in  sport;  but  they  cannot  laugh;  theirs  is  mirth- 
less play.  I  once  saw,  however,  what  I  took 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     163 

for  a  twinkle  of  merriment  in  an  elephant's  eye. 
It  was  at  Barnum's  Circus  several  years  ago. 
I  remember  the  scene  well.  The  keeper  had  just 
set  down  for  one  of  the  elephants  a  bucket  of 
water,  which  a  perspiring  and  important  youth 
had  brought  in.  The  big  beast  sucked  the  water 
quietly  up  —  the  whole  of  it  —  swung  gently 
around  to  thank  the  perspiring  boy,  then  soused 
him,  the  whole  bucketful !  Everybody  roared,  and 
one  of  the  elephants  joined  in  with  trumpetings, 
so  high  and  jolly  was  the  joke. 

The  elephant  that  played  the  trick  looked 
solemn  enough,  except  for  a  twitch  at  the  lips 
and  a  glint  in  the  eye.  There  is  something  of  a 
smile  about  every  elephant's  lips,  to  be  sure,  and 
fun  is  so  contagious  that  one  should  hesitate 
to  say  that  he  saw  the  elephant  laugh.  But  if 
that  elephant  did  not  laugh,  it  was  not  his 
fault. 

From  the  elephant  to  the  infusorian,  the  mi- 
croscopic animal  of  a  single  cell,  is  a  far  call  —  to 
the  extreme  opposite  end  of  the  animal  king- 
dom, worlds  apart.  Yet  I  have  seen  Paramoscium 
caudatum  at  play,  in  a  drop  of  water  under  a 
compound  microscope,  as  I  have  seen  elephants 


•i 64     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

at  play  in  their  big  bathtub  at  the  Zoological 
Gardens. 

Place  a  drop  of  stagnant  water  under  your 
lens  and  watch  these  atoms  of  life  for  yourself. 
Invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  they  are  easily  fol- 
lowed on  the  slide  as  they  skate  and  whirl  and 
chase  each  other  to  the  boundaries  of  their  play- 
ground and  back  again,  first  one  of  them  "  it," 
then  another.  They  stop  to  eat;  they  slow  up  to 
divide  their  single-celled  bodies  into  two  cells, 
the  two  cells  now  two  living  creatures,  where,  a 
moment  before,  there  was  but  one,  each  swimming 
off  immediately  to  feed  and  play  and  multiply. 

Play  seems  to  be  as  natural  and  as  necessary 
to  the  wild  animals  as  it  is  to  the  human.  Like 
us,  the  animals  play  hardest  while  young,  but  as 
some  human  children  never  outgrow  their  youth 
and  love  of  sport,  so  there  are  old  animals  that 
never  grow  too  fat,  nor  too  stiff,  nor  too  stupid 
to  play. 

The  condition  of  the  body  has  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  the  state  of  the  spirit.  The  sleek,  lithe 
otter  could  not  possibly  grow  fat.  He  keeps  in 
trim  because  he  cannot  help  it,  perhaps;  but, 
however  that  may  be,  he  is  a  very  boy  for  play, 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     165 

and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  build  himself  a  slide, 
or  chute,  for  the  fun  of  diving  down  it  into  the 
water. 

That  is  as  much  as  we  children  used  to  do, 
and  more,  for  we  had,  ready-made  for  us,  Grand- 
father's two  big  slanting  cellar-doors,  down 
which  we  slid,  and  slid,  and  slid,  till  the  wood 
was  scoured  all  white  and  slippery  with  the  slid- 
ing. The  otter  loves  to  slide.  Up  he  climbs  on 
the  bank,  then  down  he  goes  splash  into  the 
stream.  Up  he  climbs,  down  he  goes  —  time 
after  time,  day  after  day.  A  writer  in  one  of  our 
recent  magazines  tells  of  an  otter  in  the  New 
York  Zoological  Park  that  dived  about  his  tank 
balancing  a  stone  on  the  top  of  his  head. 

How  much  of  a  necessity  to  the  otter  is  his  play, 
one  would  like  to  know  —  what  he  would  give 
up  for  it,  and  how  he  would  fare,  deprived  of  it. 
In  the  case  of  Pups,  my  neighbor's  beautiful 
young  collie,  play  seems  more  needful  than  food. 
There  are  no  children,  no  one,  to  play  with  him 
there,  so  that  the  sight  of  my  small  boys  sets 
him  almost  frantic. 

His  efforts  to  induce  a  hen  or  rooster  to  play 
with  him  are  pathetic.  The  hen  cannot  under- 


166     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

stand.  She  has  n't  a  particle  of  play  in  her  any- 
how; but  Pups  cannot  get  that  through  his 
head.  He  runs  rapidly  round  her,  drops  flat  on 
all  fours,  swings  his  tail,  cocks  his  ears,  looks 
appealingly  and  barks  a  few  little  cackle-barks, 
as  nearly  hen-like  as  he  can  make  them,  then 
dashes  off  and  whirls  back — while  the  hen  picks 
up  another  bug.  She  never  sees  Pups.  The  old 
white  coon  cat  is  better;  but  she  is  usually  up 
the  miff-tree.  Pups  steps  on  her,  knocks  her 
over,  or  otherwise  offends,  especially  when  he 
tags  her  out  into  the  fields  and  spoils  her  hunt- 
ing. Won't  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals  send  out  some  child  or 
puppy  to  play  with  Pups  of  a  Saturday  ?  —  lest 
Pups  follow  his  predecessor  Rex  to  an  early 
grave  from  gout,  induced  by  all  food  and  no 
play. 

I  doubt  if  among  the  lower  animals  play 
holds  any  such  prominent  place  as  with  the  dog 
and  the  keen-witted,  intelligent  otter.  To  catch 
any  of  them  at  play  is  a  rare  experience,  and  to 
have  a  chance  to  play  with  them  is  infinitely 
rarer.  The  other  day  I  was  told  by  a  friend  of  a 
fox  on  one  of  the  golf-links  of  Boston  that  tried 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     167 

to  play  golf,  or  rather,  tag.  The  golfer  and  his 
small  son  were  knocking  the  ball  back  and  forth 
about  the  green,  it  being  too  near  dusk  to  play, 
when  the  boy  called  his  father's  attention  to 
some  creature  watching  them  from  the  edge  of  a 
grove.  It  was  a  fox.  Just  then  the  ball  was  sent 
in  the  direction  of  Reynard,  who  ran  out  on  the 
green,  caught  it  up,  and  cut  for  the  woods  with 
the  golfers  after  him.  He  dropped  the  ball,  ran 
on,  and  stopped  to  watch  the  players  again. 
Again  they  knocked  the  ball  toward  him,  when 
he  ran  after  it  and  scampered  with  it  for  the 
trees,  the  two  golfers  yelling  at  him  and  chasing 
him  till  he  dropped  it.  Then  they  took  an  old 
ball,  drove  it  far  before  them  across  the  path  of 
the  fox,  who  once  more  seized  it,  and  with  the 
human  playmates  at  his  heels  got  away  success- 
fully, the  ball  in  his  teeth,  amidst  the  trees.  He 
was  perhaps  a  young  fox  who,  like  Pups,  was 
dying  for  a  little  play. 

One  of  our  naturalists  describes  the  game  of 
"follow  my  leader"  as  he  watched  it  played  by 
a  school  of  minnows — a  most  unusual  record, 
but  not  at  all  hard  to  believe,  for  I  saw  only 
recently,  from  the  bridge  in  the  Boston  Public 


168     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

Garden,  a  school  of  goldfish  playing  at  something 
very  much  like  it. 

This  observer  was  lying  stretched  out  upon  an 
old  bridge  watching  the  minnows  through  a 
crack  between  the  planks,  when  he  saw  one  leap 
out  of  the  water  over  a  small  twig  floating  at  the 
surface.  Instantly  another  minnow  broke  the 
water,  followed  by  another  and  another,  the  whole 
school,  as  so  many  sheep,  or  so  many  children, 
following  the  leader  over  the  twig. 

The  love  of  play  seems  to  spring  from  one  of 
the  elemental  needs  of  animal  life,  and  the  games 
of  us  human  children  seem  to  have  been  played 
before  the  dry  land  was,  when  there  were  only 
water-babies  in  the  world,  for  certainly  the  fish 
never  learned  "  follow  my  leader  "  from  us.  Nor 
did  my  young  bees  their  game  of  "prisoners' 
base,"  which  they  play  almost  every  summer 
noontime  in  front  of  the  hives.  And  what  is  the 
game  the  flies  play  about  the  cord  of  the  drop- 
light  in  the  center  of  the  kitchen  ceiling? 

And  what  was  the  game  the  butterflies  were 
playing  over  the  peak  of  Hood?  And  how 
came  they  there  ?  And  whither  went  they  when 
the  sun  sank  that  night,  and  the  wind  swung 


BUTTERFLIES  OF  MT.  HOOD     169 

hard  to  the  north,  and  the  gods  of  the  storms 
met  on  the  summit  ? 

We  saw  the  clouds  gathering  below  us  as  we 
started  down.  On  the  glacier  walls  we  met  the 
cold  winds  climbing  up  and  heard  their  talk 
of  storm  until  we  came  within  the  shelter  of  the 
trees  about  the  Inn.  During  the  night  I  woke  to 
listen  for  the  sound  of  feet  on  the  mountain,  but 
none  bent  the  pines  outside  my  window,  nor 
swayed  the  wide  wooded  slopes  that  stretched 
away  to  the  orchards  and  the  valleys  below. 
Near  morning  a  slow  rain  began  to  fall.  \Vas 
this  the  talk  that  we  had  heard  along  the  heights'? 
This  the  meeting  of  those  forces  flying  past  us 
toward  the  summit'?  Then  through  the  small 
stepping  of  the  rain  I  caught  far  off  a  mightier 
tread,  a  faint  concord  of  crash  and  roar  —  or  felt 
it  in  the  very  frame  of  things,  as  when  an  organ 
fills  the  deep  dim  places  of  the  church  with  trem- 
bling, and  no  note  is  heard.  Hurrying  out,  I  saw 
the  rain  slanting  down  the  canon,  the  dull  sky 
darkening  behind  the  peak,  while  all  about  the 
summit  smoked  the  gray  smother  of  storm.  Sud- 
denly the  smoke  lifted,  filled,  poured  over  and 
down  till,  caught  in  some  mighty  draft,  the  cloud 


iyo     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

broke  and  swept  swirling  back  to  the  pinnacle 
in  a  million  flying  shreds,  where,  rounding  again 
into  billows,  it  was  torn  into  streaming  sheets 
that  whipped  far  down  the  precipitous  walls, 
winding  the  summit  instantly  in  another  shroud 
of  snow. 

Gale  and  snow-cloud  this  morning,  where,  yes- 
terday, it  was  butterflies  that  were  playing  over 
the  lofty  crater  of  Mount  Hood. 


VIII 

THE   ROCKS   FOR  THE   CONIES 


VIII 
THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES 

E  were  hunting  for  mountain  sheep 
in  the  wildest  peaks  of  the  Wal- 
lowa  range,  and  incidentally  had 
tried  the  fishing  in  the  Imnaha. 
Such  trout !  But  it  is  so  in  all  the 
Oregon  rivers.  We  were  after  mountain  sheep, 
not  trout,  and  we  came  off  with  a  cony.  It  was 
not  the  first  time.  Many  an  expedition  has  so 
turned  out;  many  of  mine,  I  mean,  conies  for 
sheep,  the  feeble  folk  for  the  strong  rangers  of 
the  high  hills. 

Life  is  not  a  matter  of  size,  except,  perhaps,  to 
the  hunter.  To  the  naturalist  and  lover  of  nature, 
life  is  a  matter  of  kind,  the  cony  after  his  kind 
being  as  interesting  as  the  wild  goat  after  his 
kind,  or  the  stork  after  her  kind.  I  doubt,  indeed, 
if  ever  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  animal  life 
impressed  me  more  than  while  I  sat  by  the  cony 
slide  on  a  peak  above  the  clouds  asking  the  little 


174    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

creature  why  and  why !  The  geographical  distri- 
bution  of  land  animals,  their  successive  migra- 
tions back  and  forth  bet  ween  the  continents  during 
the  geological  ages,  is  a  story  to  stir  the  slowest 
imagination ;  yet  no  single  record  of  these  fossiled 
wanderings  to  be  read  in  the  rocks  ever  stirred 
me  more  than  did  the  sight  of  the  live  cony  mak- 
ing a  home  for  himself  in  the  narrow  limits  of  his 
rock-slide  in  the  rifts  of  the  rent  and  blasted  peaks 
of  the  Wallowas. 

From  the  gorge  of  the  wild  Imnaha  we  had 
climbed  up  and  up  to  the  blade-like  divide  that 
runs  between  the  head  waters  of  the  Big  Sheep 
and  Little  Sheep  Creeks  on  one  side,  and  the 
windings  of  the  Imnaha  on  the  other,  when  our 
guide  and  our  mammal-collector  left  us  and  rode 
on  ahead.  They  soon  struck  an  old  mining-trail 
around  the  flank  of  a  peak,  and,  winding  about 
into  this,  they  shortly  disappeared.  It  was  near 
the  end  of  a  hard  day's  travel,  and  as  our  inde- 
fatigable collector  often  took  such  sudden  turns, 
I  thought  little  of  it.  But  that  night  the  two  came 
straggling  late  into  camp  with  a  cony,  or  "pika," 
the  "little  chief,"  or  "crying,"  hare.  This  was 
what  they  had  gone  off  in  such  haste  for,  making 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES    175 

a  long  detour  to  a  certain  rock-slide  on  the  pass 
known  to  our  young  guide. 

The  cony  is  not  an  animal  familiar  to  many 
persons.  Except  naturalists,  few  climbers  who 
have  eyes  or  ears  for  so  shy,  so  tiny  and  rare  a 
creature,  and  one  so  difficult  to  see,  ever  get  into 
the  high  altitudes  of  the  cony  country.  But  our 
guide,  who  had  been  a  sheep-herder  and  camp- 
tender  in  the  mountains,  was  an  exceptionally 
keen  observer.  In  crossing  this  part  of  the  pass 
the  summer  before  he  had  heard  and  seen  a  pecu- 
liar little  animal  about  the  size  and  shape  of  a 
guinea-pig  among  the  broken  rocks  of  one  of  the 
slides.  To  this  rock-slide  he  had  taken  the  col- 
lector, and  they  had  come  off  with  one  of  the 
conies,  while  I,  meantime,  was  trying  to  keep  up 
with  Maud  and  Barney,  the  pack-mules,  descend- 
ing the  other  side  of  the  pass,  and  missing  with 
them  an  experience  that  only  a  few  mountain- 
peaks  in  the  world  could  give  me. 

I  was  undone  when  the  two  men  with  the  cony 
came  into  camp.  To  have  been  so  near  and  then, 
in  the  company  of  those  clownish  mules,  to  have 
passed  stupidly  by !  We  had  descended  to  Aner- 
oid Lake  for  camp.  Our  course  from  here  led 


176     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

down  a  plunging  stairway  to  Wallowa  Lake  with 
never  a  hope  for  another  cony  slide  on  the  trail. 
We  were  below  the  peaks.  It  was  necessary,  too, 
that  we  push  forward.  Not  another  day  was  to 
be  had !  Our  time  was  up ;  and  besides,  there  was 
nothing  left  to  eat  but  sour-dough  bread  and  con- 
densed milk.  This  was  too  true.  And  my  com- 
panions imagined  that  the  thought  of  an  extra 
day  on  sour-dough  bread  would  cure  me  of  my 
conies.  A  few  days  more  of  it  would  have  cured 
me  of  everything.  A  particularly  good  fellow  was 
our  cook,  one  of  the  State's  best  game  wardens ; 
all  of  which  applies  only  remotely  to  his  bread. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  me  to  live.  It  is  not  ne- 
cessary for  anybody  to  live.  But  it  was  necessary 
for  me  to  see  a  live  cony,  though  I  ate  more  of 
Leffel's  sour-dough  bread  to  pay  for  it.  One  may 
pay  too  dearly  for  life.  The  price  on  conies,  how- 
ever, is  never  marked  down. 

I  said  nothing  that  night.  Early  the  next  morn- 
ing one  of  the  men  reported  the  hobbled  horses 
away  off  in  the  meadows  at  the  head  of  the  lake ; 
and  while  they  were  being  rounded  up  and  the  kit 
packed,  I  left  camp  unobserved,  struck  the  upward 
trail  and  made  for  the  peak  of  the  cony  slide. 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES    177 

The  sun  was  high  when  I  found  myself  slip- 
ping and  sliding  along  the  sharp  slopes  in  sight 
of  the  great  rock-heap.  It  was  ten  o'clock.  No 
wind  was  moving,  no  sound  or  cry  of  any  kind 
about  the  slide,  no  sign  of  life  anywhere. 

This  must  be  the  place,  however.  I  had  passed 
it  at  some  distance  the  night  before ;  and  here  were 
footprints  leading  down  the  bare  slope  up  which  I 
was  scrambling.  This  was  the  slide,  but  who  would 
ever  have  paused  here  before  this  heap  of  broken 
rock,  expecting  to  see  any  living  thing  in  it? 

The  slide  was  of  cracked  and  splintered  chunks 
that  had  broken  off  of  the  peak  above  and  filled 
a  wash  or  gully  on  the  side,  just  as  bricks  might 
fall  from  a  chimney  and  fill  the  length  of  a  valley 
on  the  roof.  Stunted  trees  grew  at  the  base  of 
the  slide,  and  up  the  side  some  scraggly  grass 
and  a  few  snow-line  flowers,  squat  alpine  sorts, 
blooming  bravely  along  the  edges  of  the  melting 
snow-banks. 

This  was  new  hunting  for  me.  I  crept  round 
the  crumbling  slope  and  down  to  the  border  of 
the  slide,  where  I  stood  trying  to  make  myself 
believe  that  animal  life  of  any  kind,  larger  than 
some  of  the  boreal  mice,  could  climb  to  this 


178     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

height  and  here  make  a  home.  It  was  impossible 
that  this  barren,  blasted  pile  from  the  peak  could 
furnish  shelter  and  food  enough  to  keep  the  fires 
of  any  warm-blooded  life  burning  throughout  a 
winter!  This  was  the  ridge-pole  of  the  world.  A 
wilder,  barrener,  more  desolate  land  of  crags  and 
peaks  could  hardly  be  found. 

But  here  it  was  they  told  me  they  had  shot 
the  cony,  and  had  seen  at  least  one  other  besides 
it.  So  I  sat  down  to  watch,  without  faith ;  for  if 
any  creature  could  live  here,  what  possible  reason 
might  there  be  for  his  electing  so  to  do. 

I  was  on  the  roof  of  creation,  looking  out  and 
down,  the  sense  of  space  tingling  strangely  in  my 
finger-tips,  the  pull  of  the  swinging  world  as  real 
in  rny  feet  as  the  thrill  of  the  thin  air  in  my  lungs. 
How  such  altitudes  quicken  and  exaggerate  the 
senses,  the  nerves  and  skin,  even  one's  very  hairs ! 
I  could  feel  the  individual  hairs  on  the  back  of 
my  hands  catch  and  transmit  the  messages  of 
space,  as  the  wires  on  the  Cape  Race  Station  catch 
theirs  out  of  the  spaces  above  the  sea.  As  I  sat 
looking  out  over  the  wild  scene,  a  great  dark 
hawk  wheeled  into  distant  sight  toward  Eagle 
Cap  Mountain;  far  below  me  flapped  a  band 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES    179 

of  ravens ;  and  down,  down,  immeasurably  far 
down  beneath  the  ravens,  glistened  the  small 
winding  waters  of  the  Imnaha.  But  it  was  the 
peaks,  the  scarped,  sheer-shouldered  peaks,  stark, 
black,  desolate,  standing  so  close  about  me,  that 
smote  me  with  awe  and  a  kind  of  lonely  terror.  I 
could  stay  while  the  sun  was  high.  How  could 
anything  alive  stay  longer  —  through  a  night  — 
through  a  long  winter  of  nights  in  this  slide  on 
the  summit? 

For  several  feet  each  side  of  the  broken  rock 
grew  spears  of  wiry  grass  about  six  inches  high, 
together  with  a  few  stunted  flowers,  —  pussy' s- 
paws,  alpine  phlox,  beard-tongue,  saxifrage,  and 
a  low  single  daisy.  Farther  down  the  sides  of  the 
ravine  crept  low,  twisted  pines — mere  mats  of 
trees,  prostrate,  distorted  forms  that  had  clam- 
bered and  clung  in  narrow,  ascending  tongues  up 
and  up  until  they  could  get  no  higher  hold  on 
the  blasted  slopes. 

And  here  above  the  reach  of  these  grim,  per- 
sistent pines,  here  in  the  slide  rock  where  only  a 
few  stunted  growths  and  arctic-alpine  flowers  come 
into  brief  bloom  through  the  snow,  they  had  told 
me  lived  the  cony. 


i8o     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

I  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  slide  to  rest, 
feeling  that  I  had  had  my  labor  for  my  pains  — 
infinitely  more  than  that,  the  fierce  and  fearful 
glory  of  the  heights  —  but  not  a  cony.  There 
could  be  no  excuse  for  life  up  here.  There  are 
living  forms  in  the  uttermost  depths  of  the  sea, 
as  if  thrust  down  by  the  weight  of  water;  men  in 
their  senses  dwell  far  in  the  Arctic  ice,  and  even 
go  out  into  the  sagebrush  desert  to  make  a  home, 
impelled  by  I  know  not  what.  Strange,  unac- 
countable shifts  these,  yet  not  so  unaccountable 
as  the  choice  of  such  a  rock-slide  as  this  for  a 
dwelling.  For  this  is  the  deliberate  choice  of 
a  race.  Only  at  these  heights  do  the  conies  dwell, 
only  in  such  slides  of  broken  rock.  As  for  the 
stork,  the  fir  trees  are  her  house.  The  high  hills 
are  a  refuge  for  the  wild  goats ;  and  the  rocks  for 
the  conies.  But  this  particular  slide,  while  not  so 
lofty  as  some  among  the  Colorado  peaks,  was  un- 
usually bleak  and  barren,  I  am  sure.  There  was 
almost  no  fodder  in  sight,  nothing  upon  which 
a  cony  could  live  long,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
colony  of  conies. 

Could  this  be  the  place?  I  must  make  sure 
before  settling  down  to  the  watch,  for  when  in 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES     181 

all  my  days  would  this  chance  come  again?  And 
how  soon  would  they  put  a  posse  on  my  trail  to 
fetch  me  back  to  camp  ? 

Out  in  the  middle  of  the  slide  was  a  pointed 
pile  of  rocks  with  a  certain  ordered  look  about 
them,  as  if  they  had  been  heaped  up  there  by 
other  hands  than  those  that  hurled  them  down 
from  the  peak.  Going  out,  I  examined  them 
closely  and  found  the  bloody  print  of  a  little 
bare  paw  on  the  face  of  one  of  them.  On  another 
rock  was  the  bluish  spit  of  a  lead  shot.  The  right 
place  surely.  Here  they  had  killed  the  specimen 
brought  into  camp.  I  went  back  to  my  seat  con- 
tent now  to  watch  until  they  sent  for  me.  The 
camp  must  wait  on  this  cony. 

I  had  been  watching  for  perhaps  half  an  hour, 
when  from  somewhere,  in  the  rock-slide  I  hoped, 
though  I  could  not  tell,  there  sounded  a  shrill, 
bleating  whistle,  not  unlike  that  of  the  moun- 
tain ground  squirrel's,  or  the  marmot's,  yet  more 
tremulous  and  not  so  piercing,  a  trembling,  ven- 
triloquial,  uncentered  sound  that  I  had  never 
heard  before. 

I  held  my  breath,  the  better  to  catch  the  cry. 
Again  it  sounded  —  up  or  down,  this  side  or  that 


i8a     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

of  the  slide,  I  could  not  tell.  Again  and  again, 
plaintive,  whimpering,  but  pure  and  clear !  I  gave 
over  my  ears  and,  looking  hard  at  the  slide,  my 
eyes  fixed  nowhere,  I  watched  for  motion.  Pres- 
ently, straight  in  front  of  me,  a  little  gray  form 
crept  over  a  slab,  stopped  on  all  fours,  and  whis- 
tled, waited  for  a  moment  listening,  then  disap- 
peared. The  cony ! 

Gone  ?  I  did  n't  know.  I  did  n't  care.  I  had 
seen  him ;  and  that  was  almost  more. than  I  could 
believe.  The  moment  was  full,  and  in  it  the  thing 
was  done.  What  thing,  you  ask?  Why,  my  be- 
coming a  cony,  and  with  him  now  a  dweller  in 
the  rock-slides  of  the  black  and  bitter  peaks.  I 
have  widened  my  range  by  that  experience,  added 
to  my  habitat ;  become  one  of  the  Boreal  animal 
forms  that  push  southward  on  these  heights  far 
into  my  Sonoran  zone. 

But  he  had  not  gone.  Keeping  as  still  as  the 
stones,  I  waited.  Presently  the  plaintive,  bleating 
whistle  sounded  again  from  anywhere  in  the  slide. 
I  tried  to  find  the  hole  into  which  the  cony  had 
disappeared ;  but  the  moment  my  eyes  were  taken 
from  any  spot,  it  was  impossible  to  pick  it  out 
again.  The  rocks  were  rough,  rusty  chunks,  two 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES    183 

or  three  feet  long,  piled  helter-skelter  without 
form  or  order,  but  with  such  perfect  and  confus- 
ing repetition  of  the  pattern,  that  fixed  attention 
at  any  one  crack  or  slab  seemed  to  set  the  whole 
slide  in  motion.  It  was  like  trying  to  fasten  the 
eye  at  some  fixed  spot  on  the  surface  of  waving 
water.  Add  to  this  the  absolute  color-harmony  of 
the  rocks  and  the  cony,  together  with  the  crea- 
ture's polyphonous  cry,  and  you  have  a  case  of 
well-nigh  perfect  protection.  On  his  slide,  even 
when  in  motion,  he  must  be  almost  invisible  to 
the  sharpest-eyed  eagle. 

If  you  will  think  of  a  half-grown  rabbit,  the 
cottontail,  only  without  a  cotton  tail,  turned  into 
a  guinea-pig  with  large,  round  ears,  you  will  get 
a  pretty  fair  notion  of  the  size,  color,  and  shape 
of  the  cony,  perhaps  better  called  "pika,"  or 
"  whistling  hare,"  or  "  little  chief  hare."  His  legs 
are  all  of  a  length,  so  that  he  runs  and  walks  in- 
stead of  hops ;  and  the  soles  of  his  feet  are  bare, 
He  gets  his  name  "  cony  "  from  the  cony  of  the 
Bible  (a  very  different  animal)  because,  like  the 
Old  World  cony,  he  lives  among  the  rocks.  The 
little  cony  of  the  Bible  is  Hyrax,  who  belongs  to 
the  elephant  family,  a  curious  remnant  of  an  older 


1 84     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

time,  whose  very  holding  on  to  life  among  the 
rocks  speaks  well  for  the  protection  they  offer, 
scanty  as  may  be  the  picking  about  their  barren 
edges. 

All  the  while  the  tremulous  call  kept  coming 
from  the  slide.  It  was  not  the  cry  of  several  voices, 
not  a  colony  whistling,  as  at  first  I  thought,  for, 
however  gregarious  they  may  be  in  a  more  favor- 
able environment,  here  I  am  sure  there  were  very 
few  pairs,  if  not,  indeed,  a  single  pair  only.  There 
was  but  one  small  haycock  curing  in  the  stones, 
and  not  enough  uncut  grass  in  the  neighborhood 
to  feed  more  than  a  pair  of  conies  for  a  winter,  or 
so  it  seemed  to  me. 

As  I  watched  the  slide,  I  finally  made  out  the 
little  whistler,  and,  with  eyes  sharpened  to  their 
work,  was  now  able  to  follow  him  from  rock  to 
rock  as  he  moved  restlessly  about.  He  called 
constantly,  and  as  constantly  stopped  to  listen. 
Plainly  it  was  an  answer  that  he  expected.  He 
was  calling  for  some  one,  and  the  echo  of  his  own 
voice  disturbed  him. 

Now  he  would  stop  short  on  a  slab  and  whistle, 
would  lift  his  head  to  listen,  and,  hearing  nothing, 
would  dive  into  some  long  passage  under  the 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES     185 

rocks  to  reappear  several  feet  or  several  yards 
away.  Here  he  would  pause  again  to  listen,  then 
to  call,  waiting  a  moment  for  the  answer,  before 
darting  into  the  crack  for  another  search  through 
the  tunnels. 

Under  and  over  the  stones,  up  and  down  the 
slide,  now  close  to  me,  now  on  the  extreme  op- 
posite edge  of  the  pile,  he  traveled,  nervously, 
anxiously  looking  for  something  —  for  some  one, 
I  truly  think ;  and  my  heart  smote  me  when  I 
thought  that  it  might  be  for  the  dead  mate  whose 
little  bare  foot-pad  had  left  the  bloody  print  upon 
the  rocks. 

Up  and  down,  in  and  out,  he  ran,  calling,  call- 
ing, but  getting  no  answer  back.  This  was  the 
only  cony  that  showed  itself,  the  only  live  one  I 
have  ever  seen ;  but  I  followed  this  one  with  my 
eye  and  with  the  field-glasses  as  it  went  searching 
and  crying  over  the  steep  rock-slide  until  long 
past  noon  —  with  the  whole  camp  down  the 
canon  looking  for  me. 

They  might  have  known  where  to  look :  out 
of  the  canon,  back  to  the  roof  of  the  world,  to 
the  cony  slide  —  if  they  could  not  wait  for  me. 

Higher  up  than  the  mountain  sheep  or  the 


186     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

goat  can  live,  where  only  the  burrowing  pocket 
gopher  and  rare  field  mice  are  ever  found,  dwells 
the  cony.  This  particular  slide  was  on  one  of  the 
minor  peaks,  loftier  ones  towering  all  about.  Just 
how  much  above  sea-level  this  one  was,  I  do  not 
know,  but  far  up  in  the  arctic-alpine  cold  in  a 
world  of  perpetual  snow.  The  conies  of  Colorado 
live  from  ten  to  fourteen  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea. 

By  perpetual  snow,  I  mean  that  the  snow-banks 
never  melt  in  the  shadowed  ravines  and  on  the 
bare  north  slopes  of  the  peaks.  Here,  where  I  was 
watching,  the  rock-slide  lay  open  to  the  sun,  the 
scanty  grass  was  green  beyond  the  gully,  and  the 
squat  alpine  flowers  were  in  bloom,  the  saxifrage 
and  a  solitary  aster  —  April  and  September  to- 
gether —  blossoming  in  the  edges  of  the  snow  just 
as  fast  as  the  melting  banks  allowed  them  to  lift 
their  heads.  But  any  day  the  wind  might  come 
down  from  the  north,  keen  and  thick  and  white 
about  the  summits,  and  leave  the  flowers  and  the 
cony  slide  covered  deep  beneath  a  drift. 

Spring,  summer,  and  autumn  are  all  one  sea- 
son, all  crowded  together  —  a  kind  of  seasonal 
peak  piercing  for  a  few  short  weeks  the  long, 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES    187 

bleak,  unbroken  land  of  winter  here  above  the 
world. 

But  during  this  brief  period  the  grass  grows, 
and  the  conies  cut  and  cure  it,  enough  of  it  to 
last  them  from  the  falling  of  the  September  snows 
until  the  drifts  are  once  more  melted  and  their 
rock-slide  warms  in  another  summer's  sun.  For 
the  conies  do  not  hibernate.  They  stay  awake 
down  in  their  catacombs ;  buried  alive  in  pitch- 
black  night  with  snow  twenty-five  feet  deep  above 
them  for  nine  out  of  twelve  months  of  the  year ! 
Here  they  are  away  up  on  the  sides  of  the  wild- 
est summits,  living  their  lives,  keeping  their 
houses,  rearing  their  children,  visiting  back  and 
forth  through  their  subways  for  all  their  long 
winter  night,  protected  by  the  drifts  which  lie  so 
deep  that  they  keep  out  the  cold. 

Right  near  me  was  one  of  their  little  haycocks, 
nearly  cured  and  ready  for  storing  in  their  barns 
beneath  the  rocks ;  but  this  would  not  last  long. 
It  was  already  early  August  and  what  haying 
they  had  to  do  must  be  done  quickly  or  winter 
would  catch  them  hungry. 

They  cut  and  cock  the  grass  about  the  slide 
until  it  is  cured;  then  they  carry  it  all  below 


*88     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

against  the  coming  of  the  cold.  Naturalists  who 
have  observed  them  describe  with  what  hurry  and 
excitement  the  colony  falls  to  taking  in  the  hay 
when  bad  weather  threatens  to  spoil  it. 

Hardy  little  farmers !  Feeble  little  folk,  why  do 
you  climb  for  a  home  with  your  tiny,  bare-soled 
feet  up,  up,  even  above  the  eyrie  of  the  eagle*? 
Why,  bold  little  people,  why  not  descend  to  the 
warm  valleys  where  winter  comes  indeed,  but 
does  not  stay  ?  Or  farther  down,  where  the  grass 
is  green  the  year  around,  with  never  a  need  to  cut 
and  cure  a  winter's  fodder? 

I  do  not  know  why —  nor  why  upon  the  toss- 
ing waves  the  little  petrel  makes  her  bed ;  nor 
why,  beneath  the  waves,  "  down  to  the  dark,  the 
utter  dark,"  on  "  the  great  gray  level  plains  of 
ooze  "  the  "  blind  white  sea  snakes  "  make  their 
homes,  nor  why  at  the  north,  in  the  fearful,  far- 
off,  frozen  north,  the  little  lemmings  dwell;  nor 
why,  nor  why,  — 

But  as  I  sat  there  above  the  clouds  listening  to 
the  plaintive,  trembling  whistle  of  the  little  cony, 
and  hoping  his  mate  was  not  dead,  and  wonder- 
ing why  he  stayed  here  in  the  barren  peaks 
and  how  he  fared  in  the  long  black  winter,  I 


THE  ROCKS  FOR  THE  CONIES     189 

said  over  and  over  to  myself  the  lines  of  Kip- 
ling— 

"And  God  who  clears  the  grounding  berg 
And  steers  the  grinding  floe, 
He  hears  the  cry  of  the  little  kit-fox 
And  the  lemming  on  the  snow." 


IX 

MOTHER  CAREY'S   CHICKENS 


IX 
MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS 

"Up  and  down!  Up  and  down! 
From  the  base  of  the  wave  to  the  billow's  crown, 
And  midst  the  flashing  and  feathery  foam, 
The  stormy  petrel  finds  a  home." 

:AND  had  been  lost  since  early  morn- 
ing. I  don't  remember  how  many 
miles  we  had  made,  but  we  had 
climbed  far  up  the  hill  of  the  sea  to- 
ward the  second  night,  when  across 
our  bows  cut  a  little  band  of  small,  dark  birds 
with  white  rumps,  which,  veering,  glancing  down 
the  ragged  waves,  seemed  to  settle  in  the  wake 
of  the  ship.  No  one  need  be  told  that  they  were 
petrels  —  Mother  Carey's  chickens ;  but  what  I 
could  hardly  believe  was  that  they  were  birds  — 
with  webbed  feet,  to  be  sure  —  but  birds  with 
wings,  adrift  here  in  the  vast  of  the  ocean,  and 
with  nests  and  mates  waiting  for  them  along  some 
far-off  rocky  shore.  They  must  have  circled  the 
ship,  for  soon  again  they  came  keeling  across  our 


i94     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

bows  into  a  curling  wave-crest,  and,  riding  down 
the  trough,  were  on  the  wing  and  gone. 

They  went  straight  into  the  night  and  as  if  to 
meet  the  coming  storm.  For  a  keen  wet  wind 
was  blowing.  The  decks  were  cleared  and  empty 
except  for  myself  and  the  officer  who  leaned  hard 
against  the  wind  as  he  paced  his  watch.  It  was 
an  inscrutable,  fearful  night  into  which  I  was  far- 
ing. My  feet  were  strange  to  the  pitching  deck ; 
my  spirit  was  not  at  home  on  the  sea.  But  the 
birds  —  it  was  their  path  I  was  following  —  where 
in  this  wild  night  of  waves  and  coming  storm 
had  they  gone? 

Down  in  the  black  water  the  porpoises  were 
leaping.  Off  on  the  sea  there  was  nothing,  noth- 
ing but  the  closing  circle  of  storm,  and  I  was 
turning  from  the  rail  with  a  shiver,  when,  far  out 
on  the  gray  chop,  I  caught  sight  of  the  petrels, 
rising  and  falling  with  the  heave  and  sag  of  the 
sea. 

Did  they  sleep  on  the  sea,  I  wonder?  Not 
that  night,  perhaps,  as  this  was  the  nesting-sea- 
son, but  here  night  and  day  they  pass  the  larger 
part  of  their  lives.  All  through  that  long  night  I 
dreamed  of  them  rising  and  falling  on  the  chop. 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     195 

And  often  since,  when  the  wind  has  been  high, 
when  the  woods  have  roared  and  heaved,  and  the 
house  has  rocked  in  the  might  of  the  gale,  I  have 
seen  that  little  brood  of  Mother  Carey's  chickens 
swirl  through  the  breaking  crest  of  some  ghost 
wave,  ride  past  my  ship  asleep,  and  vanish  in  the 
dream. 

It  is  awesome  enough  to  hear  the  creak  of 
frozen  branches,  and  the  hiss  of  driving  snow  and 
rushing  winds  past  your  chamber,  when  you  think 
that  out  in  it  all  are  the  winter  birds  sleeping. 
They  have  a  hundred  shelters,  however,  a  hun- 
dred hidings  from  the  force  of  the  storm.  But  on 
the  unsheltered  ocean  there  are  only  the  yawning 
troughs  that  dip  for  a  moment  from  the  lash  of 
the  winds,  only  the  tossing  tumult  of  the  waves. 
Who  could  fail  to  ask,  seeing  this  troop  of  birds 
far  out  on  the  ocean,  Whence  do  they  hail? 
And  whither  are  they  bound?  Not  much  larger 
than  swallows,  they  have  dared  all  the  great 
liner  dares,  and  more.  They  have  cleared  from 
some  shore,  but  the  ocean  is  their  home.  They 
love  the  waves;  they  revel  in  the  storm.  If  seen 
on  the  North  Atlantic  in  the  summer  they  may 
be  our  Leach's  petrel  that  nests  on  the  islands  in 


196     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

the  mouth  of  the  Penobscot  Bay  and  northward ; 
or  Wilson's  petrel,  a  migrant  from  the  south ;  or 
near  the  European  coast,  the  little  "  stormy  "  petrel 
that  breeds  from  the  Shetland  Islands  to  the 
Mediterranean. 

There  are  certain  birds  that  since  my  childhood 
have  had  a  strong  hold  upon  my  imagination. 
One  of  these  is  the  stormy  petrel — all  petrels 
being  "  stormy  "  to  me.  I  cannot  remember  when 
his  wide-flung  flight  did  not  seem  to  me  the  very 
soul  of  the  ocean,  nor  when  I  did  not  wish  to  fol- 
low him  over  the  waves  to  his  rookery  on  the 
cliffs.  Yet  I  was  a  man  before  I  saw  my  first  flock 
of  the  birds  skimming  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic 
—  a  man  in  years,  but  still  a  child  haunted  by 
the  lines  of  some  poem  called  "  The  Stormy 
Petrel"  read,  or  read  to  me,  from  some  old 
McGuffey  Reader,  I  imagine,  before  I  ever  started 
to  school.  A  bird  in  a  poem  is  worth  almost  as 
much  to  a  child  as  a  bird  in  a  bush;  perhaps 
more.  I  have  learned  many  facts  in  the  fields,  but 
how  many  of  my  feelings  have  come  to  me  out 
of  books !  I  felt  my  stormy  petrel  long  before  I 
knew  him.  He  was  a  poem  long  before  he  was 
a  bird,  and  the  beat  of  his  wings  must  ever  be  — 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     197 

«'  Up  and  down!  Up  and  down! 
From  the  base  of  the  wave  to  the  billow's  crown." 

I  have  not  only  seen  him  now,  I  have  also  fol- 
lowed him  to  his  sea-cliff  and  pulled  him  out  of 
his  tame  little  hole  of  a  burrow.  Here  was  his 
nest,  where  I  might  make  mine.  His  nest,  but 
this  was  not  his  home,  for  back  come  the  lines — 

"And  midst  the  flashing  and  feathery  foam, 
The  stormy  petrel  finds  a  home." 

The  poetry  got  in  ahead  of  the  ornithology.  I 
am  glad  it  did;  for  that  is  the  happier  order,  I 
think ;  just  as  I  am  glad  that  we  have  our  youth 
before  our  old  age.  One  who  is  young  first  stands 
an  excellent  chance  of  never  growing  entirely  old. 
And  so  with  poems  and  facts.  There  are  many 
kinds  of  petrels,  I  am  reminded  by  my  ornithol- 
ogist critic.  In  deference  to  him  I  have  changed 
"stormy"  several  times  so  as  to  conform  to  the 
facts  —  Kaeding's  for  instance,  is  the  petrel  on 
Three- Arch  Rocks  in  the  Pacific,  the  stormy 
("storm"  alas!  by  the  latest  A.O.U.  Check-List) 
petrel  being  an  Atlantic  bird  nesting  on  the  Euro- 
pean side  and  only  a  rare  wanderer  to  our  shores. 
"Kaeding's"  is  the  petrel  of  this  chapter;  accord- 


198     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

ing  to  the  book ;  it  may  be,  but  not  according  to 
the  poem,  and  when  I  read  this  chapter  I  shall 
read  "  stormy,"  whatever  the  unimaginative  type 
says. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  given  a  general 
description  of  Three- Arch  Rocks  Reservation  and 
its  multitudes  of  wild  sea-life,  a  description  that 
falls  hopelessly  short  of  the  scene.  I  had  looked 
at  pictures  of  the  Rocks,  had  listened  to  stories 
of  their  rookeries,  but  the  only  account  that  had 
greatly  interested  me  was  of  the  small  colony  of 
petrels  nesting  on  the  steep  north  slope  of  the 
summit  of  Shag  Rock,  the  outermost  of  the 
three.  It  was  the  petrels  above  all  else  that  I  de- 
sired to  see ;  it  was  this  patch  of  marl  or  earthy 
guano  on  the  top  of  the  rock  that  I  wished  to 
climb  to ;  for  this  little  patch  of  earth  was  some- 
thing that  I  could  share  with  the  birds,  a  point 
upon  which  we  could  meet,  a  place  that  their 
wave-wandering  wings  and  my  clod-heavy  feet 
could  have  in  common.  The  thought  of  it  greatly 
moved  me. 

I  must  be  somewhat  of  a  mariner.  My  forbears, 
back  for  three  hundred  years,  have  all  been  doc- 
tors, farmers,  and  the  like ;  and  Quakers  of  Lon- 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     199 

don  before  that.  But  the  sea  is  in  me,  though  I 
go  back  beyond  the  Vikings  for  it.  And  there  is 
something  of  the  stormy  petrel  in  us  all,  I  think, 
for  who  can  meet  the  little  mariner  on  the  waves 
and  not  follow  him  up  and  down,  up  and  down, 
till  the  wonderful  wings  bring  him  to  Shag 
Rock? 

Shag  is  an  immense  pile ;  not  a  pile  of  rocks, 
but  a  single  rude  block  of  weathered  basalt,  longer 
than  a  city  "block"  and  more  than  three  hundred 
feet  high.  Wherever  birds  can  find  a  foothold, 
and  shelf  enough  for  an  egg,  there  they  breed, 
a  single  pair,  a  rookery  of  thousands.  The  pet- 
rels nested  on  the  top,  coming  and  going  only  in 
the  dark;  and  a  night  on  the  summit  to  see  them 
come  in  to  their  burrows  was  to  crown  our  trip 
to  the  Reservation. 

Just  to  sleep  in  such  a  bed  would  be  enough. 
To  wrap  one's  self  in  one's  blanket  as  the  sun 
sinks  behind  the  round  of  the  Pacific,  to  see  the 
night  settle  down  upon  the  Rocks,  to  feel  the 
large  sea-wind  sweep  over  the  summit,  to  hear 
the  swash  on  the  ledges,  the  boom  in  the  hollow 
caverns  far  below,  and,  close  to  one's  head,  the 
strange,  wild  clangor  of  the  sea-birds  —  it  would 


aoo    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

be  enough  to  turn  one's  face  to  the  mist  in  such 
a  spot,  and  to  know  that  one  was  part  of  this 
primordial  life,  cast  up  here,  as  the  first  life  of 
the  land  had  been  cast,  by  the  lift  of  the  sea ! 

But  how  much  more  to  lie  here  listening  for 
the  chitter  of  a  small  voice  and  for  the  fanning 
of  small  wings  that  know  no  dread,  that  have 
spanned  the  sweep  of  oceans,  and  outridden  the 
wildest  gales !  I  wanted  to  witness  their  coming 
home,  to  see,  if  possible,  in  the  thick  twilight  of 
the  summit,  their  shadows  hovering  over  the  slope, 
to  hear  their  chittering  at  the  mouth  of  the  bur- 
rows, telling  their  mates  that  they  had  returned 
from  their  day  and  night  upon  the  sea. 

This  petrel  of  Three- Arch  Rocks  digs  its  nest- 
ing-burrow in  the  earth  and  lays  one  egg.  The 
burrow  might  hold  both  birds  together,  but  only 
one  bird  is  ever  found  in  the  nest-hole.  While 
one  is  brooding,  the  other  is  off  on  its  tireless 
wings  —  away  off  in  the  wake  of  your  steamer, 
miles  and  miles  from  shore.  All  night  it  has  been 
a-wing,  and  all  day,  but,  as  darkness  begins  to 
fall  again,  it  remembers  its  mate  and  its  nest  on 
the  rocks  and  speeds  with  the  wing  of  the  twi- 
light to  its  own,  to  take  its  place  in  the  little 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     201 

black  burrow,  while  the  mate  comes  forth  and 
spreads  her  wings  out  over  the  darkening  waters, 
not  to  return,  it  may  be,  until  the  day  and  the 
night  have  passed  and  dusk  comes  creeping  once 
more  over  the  sea. 

But  why  waste  words  to  make  those  who  can- 
not understand  know  why  we  were  willing  to  risk 
limb  and  life  on  the  Rocks,  not  to  mention  the 
crossing  of  Tillamook  Bar,  in  order  to  watch  the 
coming  and  going  of  birds  no  larger  than  my 
hand  ?  To  them  I  speak  in  parables.  And  to  you 
with  hearts  that  understand  I  need  not  speak  at 
all,  for  you  know  why  we  took  the  tug  at  Tilla- 
mook, why  we  fought  for  hours  the  three  great 
breakers  on  the  narrow,  dangerous  bar,  why  we 
steamed  miles  down  the  coast  to  the  big  rocks, 
where  we  landed  amid  the  din  of  screaming  gulls 
and  bellowing  sea-lions  —  why,  in  short,  we  never 
dreamed  of  counting  the  cost  of  watching  for 
the  petrels  to  come  home  on  Shag  Rock. 

It  is  cheapest  and  safest,  and,  perhaps  sanest, 
not  to  have  any  loves  or  enthusiasms.  But  it  is 
also  very  stupid.  A  person  so  lacking  might 
cross  the  ocean  a  hundred  times  and  never  see  a 
stormy  petrel.  More  than  that,  such  a  person 


202     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

might  be  too  dull  and  mean  and  afraid  ever  to 
cross  the  ocean  at  all. 

After  steaming  in  around  Shag  Rock  we  landed 
from  a  yawl  on  a  half-submerged  ledge,  driving 
off  a  bull  sea-lion,  an  immense,  disgruntled  old 
fellow,  who  evidently  could  not  live  with  the 
herd  and  his  wretched  temper,  so  had  come  out 
here  where  he  could  have  his  fill  of  soured  silence 
and  enjoy  the  solitary  friendship  of  his  precious 
ugly  soul. 

The  rise  and  fall  of  the  waves  about  the  rocks 
was  fully  six  feet,  so  we  backed  the  yawl  up  as 
close  as  we  dared,  a  man  steadying  it  at  the 
oars,  another  standing  ready  in  the  stern  to  leap 
when  the  sea  should  bring  him  up  level  with 
the  ledge.  Having  landed  him,  we  tossed  him 
our  cameras,  provisions,  a  piece  on  every  high 
wave,  and  even  my  eleven-year-old  son,  who 
scaled  the  rocks  with  us. 

Everything  safely  cached,  we  drew  the  yawl 
upon  the  shelf  of  rock,  ordered  the  tug  to  lie  off 
and  anchor,  then  got  ourselves  in  shape  for  the 
climb. 

It  was  now  nearly  noon.  Since  early  morning 
an  ugly  fog  had  hung  about  us,  but  we  had  barely 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     203 

landed  when  the  sun  shot  through  the  banks, 
promising  us  bright  weather  for  our  cameras,  dry, 
safe  footing  on  the  cliffs,  and  a  good  night  for 
watching  on  the  peak. 

It  was  hard  to  keep  our  heads  on  the  way  up 
with  the  birds  driving  at  us,  as  it  was  hard  to  keep 
our  feet  on  the  rotten  crumbling  shelves  and  jut- 
ting corners  that  offered  us  their  treacherous  sup- 
port. But  my  head  was  kept  busy  and  out  of 
mischief  for  most  of  the  time  with  anxiety  for 
my  son,  who  showed  no  anxiety  or  ordinary  hu- 
man responsibility  at  all.  We  were  mounting  by 
ledge  stages,  each  ledge  the  home  of  a  colony  of 
birds,  and  so  thick  with  exciting  eggs  and  young 
that  the  eleven-year-old  boy  was  being  forced  to 
let  go  of  one  or  was  being  held  back  from  the 
other  all  the  way.  He  climbed  as  if  he  had 
been  hatched  on  the  peak  of  Shag  Rock.  The 
rope  about  him  was  not  necessary.  Height  and 
depth  and  the  awful  space  about  us  held  no 
terrors  for  him  —  such  stuff  is  a  live  boy  made 
of! 

But  all  these  things  had  terror  enough  for  me, 
and  I  was  glad  to  get  over  the  rim,  in  reach  of 
the  top,  although  that  gladness  was  troubled  with 


204    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

the  thought  of  how  I  was  to  get  down.  I  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  flat  and  gentle  fields  of 
New  Jersey.  I  had  climbed  sand-dunes  along  the 
Jersey  coast,  and  fences  and  trees,  but  never  slip- 
pery, slimy  bird  rocks  like  these  here  in  the 
Pacific. 

Nothing  I  had  ever  seen  on  my  native  coast 
equaled  this  for  wildness  and  strangeness  and 
abundance  of  life.  The  very  sea  seemed  vaster, 
no  doubt  because  of  the  height  of  the  rock,  the 
mountains  shoreward,  and  the  bewildering,  almost 
threatening,  tumult  of  the  alarmed  birds  spread- 
ing far  out  over  the  water. 

While  the  cameras  were  being  unslung  and 
the  moving-picture  machine  set  up,  I  went  after 
the  petrels'  nests.  It  was  now  about  three  o'clock ; 
the  sun  was  hot  and  the  young  birds,  especially 
the  young  cormorants,  suffered  from  their  expo- 
sure when  our  presence  frightened  their  parents 
off  the  nests. 

Never,  from  the  time  a  cormorant  egg  is  laid 
till  the  young  fly  from  the  nest,  are  the  shelter- 
ing wings  of  the  parents  taken  from  them  for  fear 
of  the  greedy  gulls.  Our  appearance  had  upset 
the  even  balance  of  things  and  was  causing  great 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS    205 

disturbance  and  loss  of  life,  though  we  moved 
without  so  much  as  breaking  an  egg. 

Just  below  the  rocky  backbone  of  the  top  lay 
the  green  sloping  deck  or  roof  in  which  burrowed 
the  puffins  and  the  petrels.  While  digging  out 
a  snapping,  fighting  old  puffin,  who  left  the  lasting 
mark  of  her  powerful  bill  on  the  game  warden's 
hand,  I  came  upon  a  small  side  hall  or  gallery 
running  at  right  angles  to  the  gallery  of  the  puf- 
fin's and  starting  just  within  her  front  door.  At  the 
bottom  of  this  I  found  my  first  petrel  and  drew 
her  out  with  her  one  round  white  egg,  which  was 
about  the  size  of  a  turtle-dove's. 

She  lays  only  one  egg,  and  rears  only  one 
young  at  a  time.  So  it  is  with  the  puffin,  and  the 
murre ;  but  just  why,  with  food  so  abundant,  I 
cannot  tell.  She  tried  to  escape,  but  finding  that 
impossible,  she  ejected  from  her  beak,  or  nostrils 
rather,  a  very  strong  offensive  oil,  the  most  rancid 
oil  I  ever  smelled.  If  her  burrow  were  filled  with 
this  reeking,  choking  odor,  I  could  imagine  her 
perfectly  safe  from  almost  any  attack. 

I  stroked  her  gently  until  she  grew  quiet.  Then 
I  stretched  out  her  wonderful  wings,  placed  her 
small  webbed  feet  upon  my  hand,  felt  her  beat- 


206     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

ing  heart  between  my  thumb  and  finger,  looked 
into  her  mild  eyes,  and  tried  to  think  that  at  last 
I  held  captive,  in  my  hand,  one  of  Mother  Carey's 
chickens,  "  little  Peter,"  the  walker  of  the  waves, 
the  rider  of  curling  crests,  the  lover  of  stormy 
seas. 

But  I  could  not  think  it.  This  was  not  the 
stormy  petrel.  This  was  only  a  small  bunch  of 
throbbing  feathers — the  least  of  all  the  web-footed 
birds.  For  so  much  greater  is  the  power  of  the 
bird,  so  much  mightier  its  spirit  than  its  heart- 
beat and  spread  of  wing,  and  with  so  much  more 
had  my  imagination  endowed  her  than  with  mere 
feathers  and  webbed  feet,  that  I  had  to  open  my 
hand  and  free  her  in  order  to  know  that  I  had 
had  her  —  the  bird  of  evil  omen  to  the  sailor, 
harbinger  of  foul  weather,  spirit  of  the  sea  wind 
and  the  wave. 

She  darted  from  my  hand  with  a  quick  zigzag 
motion,  as  if  dazzled  with  the  sunshine,  dipped 
over  the  rim  of  the  top  and  with  a  flap  was 
gone. 

There  was  not  a  ray  of  sunshine,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  when  I  turned  from  following  the  bird  to 
look  at  the  sky.  The  afternoon  was  still  young, 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     207 

yet  the  sun  had  disappeared,  and  the  air,  so 
thick  with  wings,  was  thickening  now  with  fog 
that  again  was  rolling  in  from  seaward,  blotting 
out  the  skyline  and  shutting  darkly  down  about 
the  gray,  wild  rocks. 

The  men  packed  their  cameras,  and,  slipping 
into  their  coats,  crept  to  shelter  behind  the  peak, 
for  a  wind  had  come  up  with  the  fog,  a  raw,  rak- 
ing wind  that  drove  the  gulls  careening  far  to 
leeward  of  the  summit  and  forced  them  close  to 
the  sea  for  a  landing. 

The  captain  had  warned  us  that  a  storm  from 
this  quarter  might  continue  for  a  week,  and  it 
did  look  as  if  the  whole  wide  Pacific  were  bear- 
ing down  upon  us.  The  fog  soon  changed  to  a 
drizzle,  and  this  in  turn  to  a  driving  slant,  that 
forced  me  to  crawl  from  point  to  point  about  the 
peak. 

It  was  not  a  pleasant  prospect  for  the  night. 
Besides,  it  would  be  quite  impossible  either  to 
see  or  to  hear  the  petrels'  return  in  the  pitch  dark 
that  was  falling,  and  in  the  wind  that  was  already 
drowning  the  lesser  sounds  —  the  screaming  birds 
overhead,  the  wash  of  the  waves,  and  the  hollow 
boom  of  the  caverns  from  below.  No  one  could 


208     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

tell  with  what  violence  it  might  sweep  this  un« 
sheltered  top  of  Shag  Rock,  to  the  peril  even  of 
our  lives. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  climb  down.  It 
would  surely  clear  by  tomorrow,  and,  consoling 
ourselves,  and  particularly  the  eleven-year-old 
boy,  with  this  hope,  we  backed  over  the  edge  of 
the  peak  for  the  descent. 

The  rocks  were  wet  by  this  time,  and  the  foot- 
ing treacherous.  The  birds,  as  we  worked  slowly 
along,  seemed  to  fear  us  less  than  earlier  in  the 
day,  flying  closer  to  our  heads,  their  harsh  cries 
and  flapping  wings  in  the  gathering  dusk  adding 
not  a  little  to  the  strain  of  the  work. 

Yet  worse  than  the  birds  over  me,  was  the 
emptiness  behind  me,  the  void  and  space  be- 
neath, which  plucked  and  pulled  at  me,  and  which 
I  could  not  turn  upon  and  face.  I  could  only 
reach  down  into  it  with  a  foot,  feel  out  through 
it  for  an  edge,  a  point,  a  seam  of  firm  rock,  any- 
thing to  touch  and  stay  me  on. 

Over  the  hanging  places  I  was  lowered  with  a 
rope,  and  down  to  me,  bumping  serenely  along, 
his  free  hand  patting  all  the  little  murres  by  the 
way,  came  Eleven  Years.  He  wished  to  stay  on  the 


MOTHER  CAREY'S  CHICKENS     209 

summit  because  it  was  storming ;  and  would  n't 
they  tie  him  so  fast  that  while  dangling  from  the 
face  of  the  cliffs  he  could  use  both  hands  freely  to 
handle  and  examine  eggs  and  young  birds  ? 

About  forty  feet  from  the  water  was  a  weathered 
niche  partly  roofed  with  rock,  and  with  a  floor 
large  enough  to  give  us  a  sleeping-place.  Here 
we  stopped  to  wait  for  the  morning. 

This  was  not  the  wild  summit,  nor  were  the 
rookeries  of  murres  and  the  gulls  whistling  and 
quacking  near  us  the  stormy  petrels  we  had  hoped 
to  see,  but  it  was  the  wildest  spot  that  I  had  ever 
tried  to  go  to  sleep  in.  For  a  time  the  lantern  of 
the  tug  showed  off  on  the  sea,  but  this,  too,  was 
soon  snuffed  out  by  the  fog,  and  we  were  alone 
in  the  midst  of  the  waters  with  only  the  sea-lions 
and  the  sea-fowl  and  the  pounding  waves  in  the 
arches  to  lull  us  into  slumber.  But  I  could  not 
sleep.  I  was  afraid  I  might  miss  something  of  it 
all.  For  wings  were  heard  passing  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  now  and  then  a  form  was  seen  hurtling 
past.  Might  they  not  be  petrels,  I  wondered.  But 
they  passed  too  swiftly  through  the  shadows  to 
be  made  out.  I  would  wait  for  to-morrow. 

I  am  still  waiting. 


210     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

The  next  day  brought  more  wet  and  wind  and 
chill.  There  might  be  a  week  of  it,  our  prophet 
had  said ;  and  there  was  a  week  of  it,  as  it  turned 
out.  The  captain  steamed  in  that  afternoon  and 
took  us  off,  amid  the  din  of  a  million  screaming, 
bellowing  voices. 

The  next  time  I  climb  Shag  Rock  I  shall  go 
storm-proof;  for  I  yet  intend  to  hear  the  winnow- 
ing wings  of  Mother  Carey's  chickens  as  they 
come  in  from  the  sea  to  take  their  turn  on  the 
nest. 


X 

THE  WILD   MOTHER 


THE  WILD  MOTHER 

HEAR  the  bawling  of  my  neighbor's 
cow.  He  calf  was  carried  off  yes- 
terday, and  since  then,  during  the 
long  night,  and  all  day  long,  her 
insistent  woe  has  made  our  hillside 
melancholy.  But  I  shall  not  hear  her  to-night,  not 
from  this  distance.  She  will  lie  down  to-night 
with  the  others  of  the  herd,  and  munch  her  cud. 
Yet,  when  the  rattling  stanchions  grow  quiet  and 
sleep  steals  along  the  stalls,  she  will  turn  her  ears 
at  every  small  stirring ;  she  will  raise  her  head  to 
listen  and  utter  a  low  tender  moo.  Her  full  udder 
hurts ;  but  her  cud  is  sweet.  She  is  only  a  cow. 

Had  she  been  a  wild  cow,  or  had  she  been  out 
with  her  calf  in  a  wild  pasture,  the  mother  in  her 
had  lived  for  six  months.  Here  in  the  stable  it 
will  be  forced  to  forget  in  a  few  hours,  and  by 
morning  will  have  died. 

There  is  a  mother-principle  alive  in  all  nature 


214     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

which  never  dies.  This  is  different  from  the 
mother-instinct,  the  mother-passion.  The  oak  and 
the  amoeba  respond  to  the  mother-principle.  It  is 
a  law  of  life ;  it  is  one  of  the  constants  of  being. 
The  mother-instinct  or  passion,  on  the  other  hand, 
occurs  only  among  the  higher  animals;  occurs 
not  sporadically  quite,  for  it  is  common  enough ; 
yet  while  generally  found,  and  while  one  of  the 
strongest,  most  interesting,  most  beautiful  of  ani- 
mal traits,  it  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  indi- 
vidual and  the  least  constant. 

This  cow  of  my  neighbor's  that  I  hear  lowing 
is  an  entirely  gentle  creature  ordinarily,  but  with 
a  calf  at  her  side  she  will  pitch  at  any  one  who 
approaches  her.  And  there  is  no  other  cow  of 
the  herd  that  mourns  so  long  when  her  calf  is 
taken  away.  The  mother  in  her  is  stronger,  more 
enduring,  than  in  any  of  the  other  nineteen  in  the 
barn.  In  my  own  cow  it  is  hardly  more  than  blind 
principle,  hardly  advanced  beyond  the  oak  tree's 
feeling  for  its  acorns,  or  the  amoeba's  for  its 
divided  self. 

Out  of  the  mother-principle  there  develops,  far 
down  the  animal  scale,  the  sexless,  neuter,  mother- 
less mother,  —  the  parent.  It  is  out  of  this  mere 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          215 

parent,  as  we  ascend  the  scale,  that  we  find  the 
mother  growing. 

The  female  crab,  attaching  her  eggs  to  her  swim- 
merets,  carries  them  about  with  her  for  their  pro- 
tection as  the  most  devoted  of  mothers ;  yet  she 
has  no  more  concern  for  them,  is  no  more  con- 
scious of  them,  feels  no  more  for  them,  than  the 
fruiting  frond  of  a  cinnamon  fern  feels  for  its 
spores.  Here  in  the  crab  is  the  form,  but  not  the 
substance,  of  the  mother. 

In  the  spider,  however,  just  one  remove  up  the 
scale  from  the  crab,  you  find  the  mother-passion. 
Crossing  a  field  the  other  day,  I  came  upon  a 
large  female  spider  of  the  hunter  family,  carry- 
ing a  round  white  sack  of  eggs,  half  the  size  of 
a  cherry,  attached  to  her  spinnerets.  Plucking  a 
long  stem  of  herd's-grass,  I  detached  the  sack 
of  eggs  without  bruising  it.  Instantly  the  spider 
turned  and  sprang  at  the  grass-stem,  fighting  and 
biting  until  she  got  to  the  sack,  which  she  seized 
in  her  strong  jaws  and  made  off  with  as  fast  as  her 
rapid  legs  would  carry  her. 

I  laid  the  stem  across  her  back  and  again  took 
the  sack  away.  She  came  on  for  it  again,  fight- 
ing more  fiercely  than  before.  Once  more  she 


2i6     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

seized  it ;  once  more  I  forced  it  from  her  jaws, 
while  she  sprang  and  bit  at  the  grass-stem  to 
annihilate  it.  The  fight  must  have  been  on  for 
two  minutes  when,  by  a  regrettable  move  on 
my  part,  one  of  her  legs  was  injured.  She  did 
not  falter  in  her  fight.  On  she  rushed  for  the  sack 
as  fast  as  I  pulled  it  away.  The  mother  in  her 
was  rampant.  She  would  have  fought  for  that 
sack,  I  believe,  until  she  had  not  one  of  her  eight 
legs  to  stands  on,  had  I  been  cruel  enough  to 
compel  her.  It  did  not  come  to  this,  for  suddenly 
the  sack  burst,  and  out  poured  a  myriad  of  tiny 
brown  spiderlings.  Before  I  could  think,  that  mo- 
ther had  rushed  among  them  and  caused  them  to 
swarm  upon  her,  covering  her,  many  deep,  even 
to  the  outer  joints  of  her  long  legs,  —  so  deep 
that  I  could  not  now  have  touched  her  with  a 
needle  except  at  the  risk  of  crushing  the  young. 
I  stood  by  and  watched  her  slowly  move  off  with 
her  encrusting  family  to  a  place  of  safety. 

I  had  seen  these  spiders  try  hard  to  escape  with 
their  egg-sacks  before,  but  had  never  tested  the 
strength  of  their  purpose.  I  was  interested  to 
know  how  common  this  mother-instinct  might 
be  in  them,  and  for  a  time  made  a  point  of  tak- 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          217 

ing  the  sacks  away  from  every  one  I  found.  Great 
differences  appeared  among  them,  the  majority 
scurrying  off  with  no  other  purpose  than  their 
own  safety,  one  of  them  dropping  the  sack  of  its 
own  accord,  some  of  them  showing  a  decided 
reluctance  to  leave  it,  a  few  of  them  a  disposi- 
tion to  fight,  but  none  of  them  the  fierce  consum- 
ing fire  of  the  one  that  lost  her  leg. 

It  seems  scarcely  possible  that  in  the  same 
family  and  among  the  same  species  so  great 
variation  of  instinct  should  exist ;  and  no  less  re- 
markable that  in  so  humble  a  form  as  the  spider 
should  be  found,  even  occasionally,  the  fully  de- 
veloped mother,  as  against  the  mere  parent,  espe- 
cially when  among  the  fishes,  higher  forms  and 
far  removed  from  these  invertebrate  arachnids,  we 
find  the  part  of  the  mother  (not  the  function  of 
maternity)  being  largely  assumed  by  the  males. 

It  is  the  male  stickleback  that  builds  the  nest ; 
then  goes  out  and  drives  the  female  in  to  lay 
her  eggs ;  then  straightway  drives  her  out  to  pre- 
vent her  eating  them ;  then  puts  himself  on  guard 
to  protect  them  from  their  other  enemies,  until 
the  young  shall  hatch  and  be  able  to  swim  away 
by  themselves. 


2i8     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

It  is  the  male  toadfish  (Batrachus  tau)  that 
crawls  into  the  nest-hole  and  takes  charge  of  the 
numerous  family.  He  may  dig  the  hole,  too,  as 
the  male  stickleback  builds  the  nest.  I  do  not 
know  as  to  that.  But  I  do  know  that  I  once 
raised  a  stone  in  the  edge  of  the  tide  along  the 
shore  of  Naushon  Island  in  Buzzards  Bay,  to  find 
its  under  surface  covered  with  round,  drop-like, 
amber  eggs,  and,  in  the  shallow  cavity  beneath, 
an  old  male  toadfish,  slimy  and  croaking,  and 
with  a  countenance  ugly  enough  to  tie  a  prowl- 
ing egg-eating  eel  into  a  hard  knot.  I  have  done 
this  a  score  of  times.  The  female  deposits  the 
eggs,  glues  them  fast  with  much  nicety  to  the 
under  surface  of  the  rock,  as  a  female  might,  and 
finishes  her  work.  Departing  at  once,  she  leaves 
the  coming  brood  to  the  care  of  the  male,  who, 
from  this  time,  without  relief  or  even  food  in  all 
probability,  assumes  the  role  and  the  responsibili- 
ties of  mother. 

Something  like  this  is  true  of  the  common 
hornpout  or  catfish,  I  believe,  though  I  have 
never  seen  it  recorded,  and  lack  the  chance  at 
present  of  proving  my  earlier  observations.  I 
think  it  is  father  catfish  who  takes  charge  of  the 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          219 

brood,  of  the  swarm,  of  kitten  catfish,  from  the 
time  the  spawn  is  laid. 

Instead  of  digging  a  hole  under  a  stone  after 
the  fashion  of  the  toadfish,  or  scooping  out  a  shal- 
low nest  in  the  marginal  sand  of  the  pond,  as 
does  the  sunfish,  the  "catty"  or  hornpout  seeks 
out  an  abandoned  muskrat  burrow  that  runs  into 
the  bank  from  the  edge  of  the  water,  and  here 
deposits  her  eggs.  As  a  boy  I  never  questioned 
but  that  it  was  the  mother  fish  on  guard.  I  be- 
lieve now,  however,  that  it  is  the  father  fish  in 
charge.  I  am  hoping  to  get  down  to  Lupton's 
Pond  this  spring  to  make  sure  of  the  matter;  for 
all  around  the  shores  of  that  pond,  in  every  musk- 
rat  hole  and  runway,  I  can  scare  out  an  old  cat- 
fish by  stamping  hard  on  the  tussocks  or  roots 
above  the  holes.  Out  he  will  come  with  a  flop, 
and  with  a  dart  will  make  for  the  bottom  of  the 
pond ;  and  out  with  him  will  spread  the  family 
of  little  catfish  in  a  fine  black  cloud. 

The  old  fish  disappears  almost  at  once,  but  in 
a  moment  you  can  see  him  coming  back  to  the 
scattered  family,  to  the  little  black  things  that 
look  like  small  tadpoles,  who  soon  cluster  about 
him,  as  bees  about  their  queen,  and  wiggle 


220    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

away  with  him  into  the  deep  dark  waters  of  the 
pond. 

We  find  the  undeveloped  mother  in  groups 
still  higher  up  the  scale  —  among  the  toads  and 
reptiles,  and  even  among  the  birds  and  mam- 
mals ;  but  the  higher  we  ascend  the  more  pro- 
nounced and  constant  becomes  the  mother-pas- 
sion in  the  female,  and  the  more  variable,  weak, 
and  intermittent  its  manifestation  among  the 
males. 

A  curious  sharing  of  mother-qualities  by  male 
and  female  is  shown  in  the  Surinam  toads  of 
South  America,  where  the  male,  taking  the  newly 
deposited  eggs,  places  them  with  his  own  hands 
upon  the  back  of  the  female.  Here,  glued  fast  by 
their  adhesive  jelly,  they  are  soon  surrounded  by 
fresh-formed  cells,  each  cell  capped  by  a  lid.  In 
these  cells  the  eggs  hatch  and  the  young  go 
through  their  metamorphoses,  apparently  absorb- 
ing some  nourishment  through  the  skin  of  their 
mother,  until  they  break  through  the  lids  of  their 
cells  finally  and  hop  away.  They  might  as  well 
be  toadstools  on  a  dead  stump,  so  far  as  motherly 
care  or  concern  goes,  for,  aside  from  allowing  the 
male  to  spread  the  eggs  upon  her  back,  she  is  no 


THE  WILD  MOTHER 

more  a  mother  to  them  than  the  dead  stump  is 
to  the  toadstools.  She  is  host  only  to  the  little 
parasites. 

I  do  not  know  of  a  single  mother  among  our 
reptiles,  or  a  single  father-mother.  The  mother- 
passion,  so  far  as  my  observation  goes,  plays  no 
part  whatever  in  reptilian  life.  Whereas,  passing 
on  to  the  birds,  the  next  order  in  the  line,  the 
mother-passion  becomes,  by  all  odds,  the  most 
interesting  item,  the  most  determining  single  fac- 
tor in  bird  life.  More  than  the  song  or  the  color 
or  the  courting  of  the  male  is  the  mother-love  of 
the  female  in  every  ornithologist's  records. 

This  is  strikingly  true  also  of  the  mammals.  It 
is  as  if  the  watcher  in  the  woods  went  out  to  see 
the  mother  animal  only.  It  is  her  going  and  com- 
ing that  he  follows;  her  faring,  foraging,  and 
watch-care  that  let  him  deepest  into  the  secrets 
of  wild  animal  life. 

On  one  of  the  large  estates  here  in  Hingham, 
a  few  weeks  ago,  a  fox  was  found  to  be  destroy- 
ing poultry.  The  time  of  the  raids,  and  their  bold- 
ness, were  proof  enough  that  the  fox  must  be  a 
female  with  young.  Poisoned  meat  was  prepared 
for  her,  and  at  once  the  raids  ceased.  A  few  days 


222     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

later  one  of  the  workmen  of  the  estate  came  upon 
the  den  of  a  fox,  at  the  mouth  of  which  lay  dead 
a  whole  litter  of  young  ones.  They  had  been 
poisoned.  The  mother  had  not  eaten  the  doc- 
tored food  herself,  but  had  carried  it  home  to  her 
family.  They  must  have  died  in  the  burrow,  for 
it  was  evident  from  the  signs  that  she  had  dragged 
them  out  into  the  fresh  air,  to  revive  them,  and 
deposited  them  gently  on  the  sand  by  the  hole. 
Then  in  her  perplexity  she  had  brought  various 
tidbits  of  mouse  and  bird  and  rabbit  and  placed 
at  their  noses  to  tempt  them  to  wake  up  out  of 
their  strange  sleep  and  eat  as  hungry  children 
ought  to  eat.  Who  knows  how  long  she  watched 
beside  the  still  forms,  and  what  her  emotions  were  ? 
She  must  have  left  the  neighborhood  soon  after, 
however,  for  no  one  has  seen  her  since  about  the 
estate. 

I  have  elsewhere  told  of  the  cat,  Calico,  and 
her  strange  family ;  the  thwarted  cat  mother  mak- 
ing good  the  loss  of  her  kittens  by  adopting  a 
nest  of  young  gray  squirrels.  A  similar  story 
comes  to  me  from  a  reader  in  New  York  State. 
I  will  quote  my  correspondent's  letter  verbatim, 
not  because  there  is  an  item  in  her  account,  re- 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          223 

markable  as  it  is,  that  the  most  careful  and  expe- 
rienced of  observers  would  find  hard  to  credit, 
but  because  it  reads  so  much  like  a  page  out  of 
the  "Natural  History  of  Selborne." 

She  writes :  — 

"  Our  Tootsy  became  a  mother  of  several  little 
kittens;  as  she  was  not  in  the  best  of  health  we 
thought  best  not  to  let  her  raise  any  of  them.  For 
a  day  or  two  she  mourned  for  her  little  ones.  As 
she  was  the  pet  of  the  family,  we  consoled  her  as 
best  we  could.  This  day  I  had  her  out  on  the 
lawn.  I  looked  down  to  the  bridge,  saw  a  little 
squirrel  up  on  one  of  the  bridge-posts.  I  picked 
Tootsy  up  and  let  her  climb  the  post  and  catch 
the  squirrel,  thinking  it  would  take  her  mind  off 
from  her  grief  for  a  while. 

"  She  brought  it  up  on  the  lawn,  and  in  place 
of  playing  with  it  and  finally  eating  it,  as  is  the 
nature  of  cats,  she  wanted  to  mother  it.  We  then 
left  her,  and  soon  we  discovered  she  had  taken  it 
upstairs  in  mother's  bed  and  hid  it.  She  staid  with 
it  all  night,  and  we  saw  the  little  squirrel  could 
take  nourishment. 

"  The  next  day  she  found  two  more  squirrels 
and  brought  them  home,  so  we  had  a  family  of 


224     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

three.  She  brought  them  up  until  they  were  able 
to  eat,  meanwhile  giving  loads  of  pleasure;  when 
they  became  so  large  and  frisky  we  could  do 
nothing  with  them,  they  would  get  into  every- 
thing. We  kept  one,  which  disappeared  shortly 
after.  We  think  it  had  gotten  with  other  squir- 
rels, for  sometimes  when  it  did  get  out  on  the 
trees  the  cat  would  sit  under  the  tree  for  hours  at 
a  time  coaxing  it  back." 

I  have  known  a  hen,  too,  deprived  of  her 
chickens,  to  adopt  a  litter  of  tiny  kittens,  brood- 
ing them  and  guarding  them  as  her  own. 

The  birds  are  structurally  lower  than  the  most 
primitive  of  the  mammals;  they  are  close  kin  to 
the  cold-hearted  reptiles,  yet  it  is  the  bird,  the 
mother  bird,  rather,  that  has  touched  our  imagin- 
ations as  perhaps  the  most  nearly  human  of  all 
wild  things. 

"  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  .  .  .  how  often  would 
I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a 
hen  gather eth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye 
would  not!" 

And  an  earlier  Hebrew  prophet,  likening  God's 
harsh  providences  to  the  rending  of  a  lion,  hast- 
ened on  with  the  assurance  that  in  his  heart  God 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          225 

hovers  over  Jerusalem  as  little  mother  birds  hover 
over  their  nests. 

Hovering  He  will  deliver  it, 
And  passing  back  and  forth 
He  will  preserve  it.1 

The  bird  mother  is  the  bravest,  tenderest,  most 
solicitous,  most  appealing  thing  one  ever  comes 
upon  in  the  fields ;  the  problem  of  her  presence 
or  absence,  the  degree  or  intensity  of  her  being, 
and  her  behavior  under  stress,  add  more  than 
anything  else  to  the  interest  and  charm  of  bird- 
study.  It  is  the  rare  exception,  but  we  sometimes 
find  the  mother-instinct  wholly  lacking  among 
the  birds,  as  in  the  case  of  our  notorious  cowbird, 
who  sneaks  about,  watching  her  chance  when 
some  smaller  bird  is  gone,  to  drop  her  egg  into 
its  nest  The  egg  must  be  laid;  the  burden  of  the 
race  has  been  put  upon  the  cowbird,  but  not 
the  precious  burden  of  the  child.  Hers  are  only 
the  functions  of  maternity.  She  is  not  a  mother. 
She  is  body  only,  not  a  soul. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  European  cuckoo,  but 
not  quite  true  of  our  American  cuckoos,  in  spite 
of  popular  belief.  For  our  birds  (both  species) 
build  rude,  elementary  nests  as  a  rule,  and  brood 

*  Author's  translation  from  the  Hebrew,  Isa.,  chap.  xxxi. 


226     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

their  eggs.  Occasionally  they  may  steal  a  robin's 
or  a  catbird's  nest,  may  even  destroy  the  owner's 
eggs  (though  never  to  my  knowledge),  in  order 
to  save  labor  —  the  unimaginative  labor  of  laying 
one  stick  across  another  when  one  does  not  know 
how.  But  here  is  a  plain  case  of  knowledge  wait- 
ing on  desire.  So  undeveloped  is  the  mother  in 
the  cuckoo  that  if  you  touch  her  eggs  she  will 
leave  them  —  abandon  her  rude  nest  and  eggs,  as 
if  any  excuse  were  excuse  enough  for  an  escape 
from  the  cares  of  motherhood.  How  should  a  bird 
with  so  little  mother- love  ever  learn  to  build  a 
firm- walled,  safe,  and  love-lined  nest  ? 

The  great  California  condor,  according  to  the 
records  of  the  only  one  ever  studied,  is  a  most 
faithful  and  anxious  mother,  the  dumb  affection 
of  both  parents  indeed,  for  their  single  offspring, 
being  at  times  pathetically  human.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  mother  in  the  turkey-buzzard  is  so 
evenly  balanced  against  the  vulture  in  her  that 
I  have  known  a  brooding  bird  to  be  entirely  un- 
done by  the  sudden  approach  of  a  man  and  to 
rise  from  off  her  eggs  and  devour  them  instantly, 
greedily,  and  then  make  off  on  her  serenely  soar- 
ing wings  into  the  clouds. 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          227 

Such  bird  mothers,  however,  are  not  the  rule. 
The  buzzard,  the  cuckoo,  and  the  cowbird  are 
striking  exceptions.  The  flicker  will  keep  on  lay- 
ing eggs  as  fast  as  you  take  them  from  the  nest 
hole,  until  she  has  no  more  eggs  to  lay.  The 
quail,  like  the  cuckoo,  will  sometimes  desert  her 
nest  if  even  an  egg  is  so  much  as  touched,  but 
only  because  she  knows  that  her  nest  has  been 
discovered  and  must  be  started  anew,  in  some 
more  hidden  place,  for  safety.  She  is  a  wise  and 
devoted  mother,  keeping  her  brood  with  her  as  a 
"  covey  "  all  winter  long. 

Gilbert  White  tells  the  following  story  of  the 
raven's  mother-love :  — 

*'  In  the  center  of  this  grove  there  stood  an 
oak,  which,  though  shapely  and  tall  on  the  whole, 
bulged  out  into  a  large  excrescence  about  the 
middle  of  the  stem.  On  this  a  pair  of  ravens  had 
fixed  their  residence  for  such  a  series  of  years 
that  the  oak  was  distinguished  by  the  title  of  the 
Raven  Tree.  Many  were  the  attempts  of  the 
neighboring  youths  to  get  at  this  eyry :  the  diffi- 
culty whetted  their  inclinations,  and  each  was 
ambitious  of  surmounting  the  arduous  task.  But 
when  they  arrived  at  the  swelling,  it  jutted  out 


228     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

so  in  their  way,  and  was  so  far  beyond  their  grasp, 
that  the  most  daring  lads  were  awed,  and  acknowl- 
edged the  undertaking  to  be  too  hazardous :  so 
the  ravens  built  on,  nest  upon  nest,  in  perfect 
security,  till  the  fatal  day  arrived  in  which  the 
wood  was  to  be  leveled.  It  was  in  the  month  of 
February,  when  these  birds  usually  sit.  The  saw 
was  applied  to  the  butt,  the  wedges  were  inserted 
into  the  opening,  the  woods  echoed  to  the  heavy 
blow  of  the  beetle  or  mall  or  mallet,  the  tree 
nodded  to  its  fall ;  but  still  the  dam  sat  on.  At 
last,  when  it  gave  way,  the  bird  was  flung  from 
her  nest,  and,  though  her  parental  affection  de- 
served a  better  fate,  was  whipped  down  by  the 
twigs,  which  brought  her  dead  to  the  ground." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  instances  of  varia- 
tion of  the  mother-instinct  in  the  same  species  of 
birds,  which  has  ever  come  under  my  observa- 
tion, occurred  in  the  rookeries  of  the  Three-Arch 
Rocks  Reservation  off  the  coast  of  Oregon. 

We  had  gone  out  to  the  Reservation,  as  I  said 
in  the  opening  chapter,  in  order  to  study  and 
photograph  its  wild  life,  and  were  making  our 
slow  way  toward  the  top  of  the  outer  rock.  Up 
the  sheer  south  face  of  the  cliff  we  had  climbed, 


THE  WILD  MOTHER 

through  rookery  after  rookery  of  nesting  birds, 
until  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  blade-like  back, 
or  top,  that  ran  up  to  the  peak.  Scrambling  over 
this  edge,  we  found  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a 
great  colony  of  nesting  murres  —  hundreds  of 
them  —  covering  the  steep,  rocky  part  of  the 
top. 

As  our  heads  appeared  above  the  rim,  many 
of  the  colony  took  wing  and  whirred  over  us  out 
to  sea,  but  most  of  them  sat  close,  each  bird  upon 
her  egg  or  over  her  chick,  loath  to  leave,  and  so 
expose  to  us  her  hidden  treasure. 

The  top  of  the  rock  was  somewhat  cone-shaped, 
and  in  order  to  reach  the  peak,  and  the  colonies 
on  the  west  side,  we  had  to  make  our  way  through 
this  rookery  of  the  murres.  The  first  step  among 
them,  and  the  whole  colony  was  gone,  with  a  rush 
of  wings  and  feet  that  sent  several  of  the  top- 
shaped  eggs  rolling,  and  several  of  the  young 
birds  toppling,  over  the  cliff  to  the  pounding 
waves  and  the  ledges  far  below. 

We  stopped  instantly.  We  had  not  come  to 
frighten  and  kill.  Our  climb  up  had  been  very 
disturbing  to  the  birds,  and  had  been  attended 
with  some  loss  of  both  eggs  and  young.  This  we 


230    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

could  not  help ;  and  we  had  been  too  much  con- 
cerned for  our  own  lives  really  to  notice  what 
was  happening.  But  here  on  the  top,  with  the 
climb  beneath  us,  the  sight  of  a  young  murre 
going  over  the  rim,  clawing  and  clinging  with 
beak  and  nails  and  unfledged  wings,  down  from 
jutting  point  to  shel£  to  ledge,  down,  down  — 
the  sight  of  it  made  one  dizzy  and  sick. 

We  stopped,  but  the  colony  had  bolted,  leav- 
ing scores  of  eggs  and  scores  of  downy  young 
squealing  and  running  together  for  shelter,  like 
so  many  beetles  under  a  lifted  board. 

But  the  birds  had  not  every  one  bolted,  for 
here  sat  two  of  the  colony  among  the  broken 
rocks.  These  two  had  not  been  frightened  off. 
That  both  of  them  were  greatly  alarmed,  any  one 
could  see  from  their  open  beaks,  their  rolling 
eyes,  their  tense  bodies  on  tiptoe  for  flight.  Yet 
here  they  sat,  their  wings  out  like  props,  or  more 
like  gripping  hands,  as  if  they  were  trying  to  hold 
themselves  down  to  the  rocks  against  their  wild 
desire  to  fly. 

And  so  they  were  in  truth,  for  under  their  ex- 
tended wings  I  saw  little  black  feet  moving. 
Those  two  mother  murres  were  not  going  to  for- 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          231 

sake  their  babies  —  no,  not  even  for  fear  of  these 
approaching  monsters,  which  had  never  been  seen 
clambering  over  their  rocks  before ! 

One  of  the  monsters  stood  stock  still  a  moment 
for  the  other  one,  the  photographer,  to  come  up. 
Then  both  of  them  took  a  step  nearer.  It  was 
very  interesting.  I  had  often  come  slowly  up  to 
quail  on  their  nests,  and  to  other  birds.  Once  I 
crept  upon  a  killdeer  in  a  bare  field  until  my 
fingers  were  almost  touching  her.  She  did  not 
move  because  she  thought  I  did  not  see  her,  it 
being  her  trick  thus  to  hide  within  her  own  feath- 
ers, colored  as  they  are  to  blend  with  the  pebbly 
fields  where  she  lays  her  eggs.  So  the  brown  quail 
also  blends  with  its  brown  grass  nest.  But  those 
murres,  though  colored  in  harmony  with  the  rocks, 
were  still,  not  because  they  hoped  I  did  not  see 
them.  I  did  see  them.  They  knew  it.  Every  bird 
in  the  great  colony  had  known  it,  and  had  gone 
—  with  the  exception  of  these  two. 

What  was  different  about  these  two?  They 
had  their  young  ones  to  protect.  But  so  had  every 
bird  in  the  great  colony  its  young  one,  or  its  egg, 
to  protect ;  yet  all  the  others  had  gone.  Did  these 
two  have  more  love  than  the  others,  and  with 


232     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

it,  or  because  of  it,  more  courage,  more  intelli- 
gence *? 

We  took  another  step  towards  them,  and  one 
of  the  two  birds  sprang  into  the  air,  knocking  her 
baby  over  and  over  with  the  stroke  of  her  wing, 
coming  within  an  inch  of  hurling  it  across  the 
rim  to  be  battered  on  the  ledges  below.  The  other 
bird  raised  her  wings  to  follow,  then  clapped  them 
back  over  her  baby.  Fear  is  the  most  contagious 
thing  in  the  world ;  and  that  flap  of  fear  by  the 
other  bird  thrilled  her  too,  but  as  she  had  with- 
stood the  stampede  of  the  colony,  so  she  caught 
herself  again  and  held  on. 

She  was  now  alone  on  the  bare  top  of  the  rock, 
with  ten  thousand  circling  birds  screaming  to  her 
in  the  air  above,  and  with  two  men  creeping  up 
to  her  with  a  big  black  camera  which  clicked 
ominously.  She  let  the  multitude  scream,  and 
with  threatening  beak  watched  the  two  men  come 
on.  A  motherless  baby,  spying  her,  ran  down  the 
rock  squealing  for  his  life.  She  spread  her  wing, 
put  her  bill  behind  him,  and  shoved  him  quickly 
in  out  of  sight  with  her  own  baby.  The  man 
with  the  camera  saw  the  act,  for  I  heard  his  ma- 
chine click,  and  I  heard  him  say  something  under 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          233 

his  breath  that  you  would  hardly  expect  a  mere 
man  and  a  game  warden  to  say.  But  most  men 
have  a  good  deal  of  the  mother  in  them ;  and  the 
old  bird  had  acted  with  such  decision,  such  cour- 
age, such  swift,  compelling  instinct,  that  any  man, 
short  of  the  wildest  savage,  would  have  felt  his 
heart  quicken  at  the  sight. 

Just  how  compelling  might  that  mother-instinct 
be?  I  wondered.  Just  how  much  would  that 
mother-love  stand? 

I  had  dropped  to  my  knees,  and  on  all  fours 
had  crept  up  within  about  three  feet  of  the  bird. 
She  still  had  a  chance  for  flight.  Would  she  allow 
us  to  crawl  any  nearer?  Slowly,  very  slowly,  I 
stretched  forward  on  my  hands,  like  a  measuring 
worm,  until  my  body  lay  flat  on  the  rocks,  and 
my  fingers  were  within  three  inches  of  her.  But 
her  wings  were  twitching;  a  wild  light  danced  in 
her  eyes;  and  her  head  turned  itself  toward  the 
sea. 

For  a  whole  minute  I  did  not  stir.  Then  the 
wings  again  began  to  tighten  about  the  babies ; 
the  wild  light  in  the  eyes  died  down;  the  long, 
sharp  beak  turned  once  more  toward  me.  Then 
slowly,  very  slowly,  I  raised  my  hand,  and  gently 


234     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

touched  her  feathers  with  the  tip  of  one  finger — 
with  two  fingers — with  my  whole  hand,  while  the 
loud  camera  click-clacked,  click-clacked  hardly 
four  feet  away ! 

It  was  a  thrilling  moment.  I  was  not  killing 
anything.  I  had  no  high-powered  rifle  in  my 
hands,  coming  up  against  the  wind  toward  an 
unsuspecting  creature  hundreds  of  yards  away. 
This  was  no  wounded  leopard  charging  me ;  no 
mother  bear  defending  with  her  giant  might  a 
captured  cub.  It  was  only  a  mother  bird,  the  size 
of  a  wild  duck,  with  swift  wings  at  her  command, 
hiding  under  those  wings  her  own  and  another's 
young,  and  her  own  boundless  fear ! 

For  the  second  time  in  my  life  I  had  taken 
captive  with  my  bare  hands  a  free  wild  bird.  No, 
I  had  not  taken  her  captive.  She  had  made  her- 
self a  captive ;  she  had  taken  herself  in  the  strong 
net  of  her  mother-love. 

And  now  her  terror  seemed  quite  gone.  At  the 
first  touch  of  my  hand  she  felt,  I  think,  the  love 
restraining  it,  and  without  fear  or  fret  allowed  me 
to  push  my  hand  under  her  and  pull  out  the  two 
downy  babies.  But  she  reached  after  them  with 
her  bill  to  tuck  them  back  out  of  sight,  and  when 


THE  WILD  MOTHER          235 

I  did  not  let  them  go,  she  sidled  toward  me,  quack- 
ing softly,  —  a  language  that  I  perfectly  under- 
stood, and  was  quick  to  answer. 

I  gave  them  back,  fuzzy,  and  black  and  white. 
She  got  them  under  her,  stood  up  over  them, 
pushed  her  wings  down  hard  around  them,  her 
stout  tail  down  hard  behind  them,  and  together 
with  them  pushed  in  an  abandoned  egg  which 
was  close  at  hand.  Her  own  baby,  some  one  else's 
baby,  and  some  one  else's  forsaken  egg !  She  could 
cover  no  more ;  she  had  not  feathers  enough.  But 
she  had  heart  enough;  and  into  her  mother's 
heart  she  had  already  tucked  every  motherless 
egg  and  nestling  of  the  thousands  of  frightened 
birds  that  were  screaming  and  wheeling  in  the 
air  high  over  her  head. 


XI 

MOUNT  HOOD   FROM   COUNCIL   CREST 


XI 

MOUNT  HOOD  FROM  COUNCIL 
CREST 


is  one  glory  of  Rainier,  and 
another  glory  of  St.  Helen's,  and 
another  glory  of  Mount  Adams,  for 
these  majestic  peaks  differ  from  one 
another  in  glory,  and  they  all  differ 
in  turn  from  Mount  Hood,  as  Hood,  in  its  dif- 
ference only,  exceeds  them  all  in  glory.  For  pure 
spirituality,  for  earth  raised  incorruptible  and 
clothed  upon  with  the  holiness  of  beauty,  Mount 
Hood,  as  seen  in  the  heavens  from  the  heights  of 
Portland,  is  incomparable.  Hood  is  not  "The 
Mountain  that  was  God,"  but  as  its  snow-crowned 
summit,  touched  with  the  warmth  of  closing  day, 
was  first  unveiled  before  me,  my  soul  did  mag- 
nify the  Lord,  for  the  vision,  to  my  unaccustomed 
eyes,  was  all  divine. 

Portland  is  a  city  beautiful  for  situation;  Ore- 
gon is  a  State  of  vast  magnificence  ;  and  the  glory 
of  city  and  State  is  Mount  Hood.  There  are  loftier 


240    WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

mountains — Rainier  and  Shasta  are  loftier;  there 
are  peaks  that  fill  with  awe  and  that  strike  with 
terror,  while  Hood  only  fills  the  soul  with  exulta- 
tion, with  the  joy  of  beauty,  of  completeness,  and 
perfection.  Hood  is  but  little  over  eleven  thou- 
sand feet  high,  and  easily  climbed.  Its  greatness 
is  not  physical,  not  height  nor  power ;  but  form 
rather,  and  spirit,  and  position.  It  stands  sixty 
miles  from  Portland,  dominating,  but  not  over- 
whelming, the  landscape,  earth  and  all  the  sky  a 
frame  for  it.  From  Council  Crest  the  city  seems 
a  mere  spectator  looking  off  at  the  picture  of  a 
mountain  rising  in  majestic  symmetry,  wrapped 
with  a  cold  and  indescribable  purity,  yet  touched 
with  an  aspiration  that  were  fervent  were  it  less 
profound.  Mount  Hood  from  Portland  is  one  of 
the  perfect  things  of  the  world. 

What  will  be  the  influence  of  this  unearthly 
glory,  I  wonder,  shining  down  forever  upon  the 
city?  If  there  be  any  virtue,  if  there  be  any  praise 
in  thinking  upon  things  that  are  true  and  pure 
and  lovely,  should  not  the  presence  of  Hood, 
though  acting  slowly,  act  powerfully  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  city  *?  Shall  Portland  be  the  mother 
of  one  great  poet,  or  of  one  great  painter,  or  one 


MOUNT  HOOD  241 

great  prophet  because,  high  and  lifted  up  above 
her  streets,  stands  this  holy  mountain  whose  very 
shape  is  prophecy,  whose  radiance  is  the  in- 
dwelling light  of  all  true  art,  and  the  very  soul 
of  song? 

Portland  is  a  beautiful  city,  but  born  of  the 
river.  Young,  strong,  thriving,  she  is  concerned 
with  sawmills  and  salmon  now,  not  with  the  tints 
on  the  snows  of  Hood,  though  they  are  often  the 
color  of  salmon  and  of  richer  gold  than  the  heart 
of  pine.  Young,  eager,  adventurous,  she  is  bent 
on  prosperity.  Nor  does  prosperity  wait  to  be 
won ;  it  comes  pouring  in  upon  her, 

From  river  and  forest  and  orchard  and  ranch. 

It  is  hard  to  think  of  Portland  without  feeling 
the  singleness  and  intensity  of  her  purpose  to 
grow  great  and  rich,  as  it  is  hard  to  write  of  her 
without  changing  from  slow-footing  prose  to  the 
gallop  of  verse.  The  cities  along  the  Atlantic  are 
full  of  rich  men;  but  Portland  is  full  of  men 
growing  rich.  One  can  sit  on  Council  Crest  and 
see  the  process,  as  one  can  see  nothing  else,  not 
even  Hood,  so  often  is  the  mountain  shrouded  in 
clouds  and  hid  in  the  rain  and  mist.  But  where 


242     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

are  Portland's  poets,  her  painters  and  prophets  ? 
Asleep  in  the  crater  of  Hood,  I  suppose,  waiting 
for  the  mountain  to  give  them  birth. 

Portland  feels  small  need  of  poets  now ;  they 
are  not  the  stuff  of  pioneers !  How  many  poets 
came  over  the  Oregon  trail?  It  seems  incredible 
that  the  founders  of  this  great  city  should  still 
walk  its  streets,  should  gather  in  reunion  to  retell 
the  story  of  those  "  early  "  days  of  the  plains  and 
the  Indians,  as  I  saw  them  gather.  The  very 
stumps  would  still  be  standing  in  the  streets  of 
Portland  had  they  not  been  used  for  paving- 
blocks.  Poets  are  poor  hands  at  pulling  stumps 
and  paving  streets.  And  what  use  has  she  for 
painters  while  her  temple  walls  are  rising  ?  or  for 
prophets  when  the  salmon  run  their  courses  up  the 
Columbia  as  the  stars  their  courses  in  the  skies  ? 

None  yet,  but  the  time  shall  come.  The  people 
of  Portland  are  proud  of  Hood ;  they  are  more 
concerned,  however,  with  their  corner  lots.  The 
marvel  of  Portland,  according  to  those  who  have 
been  there  longest,  is  the  rise  in  land  values. 
There  is  not  a  lot  in  the  city  but  has  climbed  far 
higher  than  the  top  of  Hood.  There  is  magic  in 
Oregon  land.  The  harder  you  hold  it  the  higher 


MOUNT  HOOD  243 

it  goes.  I  should  say  that  the  chief  activity  of 
the  State  is  holding  on  to  corner  lots,  a  sort 
of  husbandry  singularly  without  virtue  here  in 
Massachusetts,  but  which  in  Oregon  yields  thirty, 
sixty,  and  a  thousand  fold.  Towns  are  being  laid 
out,  roads  built,  farms  cleared,  orchards  planted, 
and  apples,  the  fairest  apples  in  the  world,  are  be- 
ing picked,  while  the  tent-pins  of  the  population 
are  still  unpulled,  the  people  of  city  and  country 
guarding  their  land  with  guns,  as  it  were,  or  watch- 
ing their  chance  to  jump  some  neighbor's  claim. 
The  most  astonishing  thing  to  me  in  all  of  Oregon 
was  the  price  of  land.  But  then,  it  is  astonishing 
land.  I  stopped  to  watch  the  plowing  of  a  great 
field  of  stubble  in  Joseph,  where,  as  the  plows 
were  turning  the  black  soil  around  the  boundaries, 
the  machines  were  threshing  the  yellow  grain  in  the 
center.  The  crop  had  just  been  cut  —  sixty  bushels 
to  the  acre,  —  the  stubble  being  turned  in  for  the 
next  sowing,  no  manure,  no  dressing  with  it  to 
feed  the  land.  And  this  was  the  thirty-sixth  con- 
secutive year  that  wheat  had  been  sown  in  this 
field,  and  that  wheat  had  been  threshed  —  sixty 
bushels  to  the  acre  —  without  a  pound  of  fertili- 
zer given  back  to  the  soil. 


244     WHERE  ROLLS  THE  OREGON 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  in  the  middle  of  such 
fields  the  farmers  of  Oregon  are  pulling  down 
their  barns  and  building  greater  in  their  zeal  to 
make  Oregon  the  biggest-barned  State  of  the 
Union.  The  heart  of  the  Oregon  farmer  is  in  his 
barn;  he  has  not  even  tried  yet  to  build  for  his 
heart  a  house. 

But  this  is  still  true  of  farmers  East  as  well  as 
West ;  of  merchants  East  as  well  as  West ;  as 
Portland  is  true  of  cities  East  and  West.  Portland 
is  a  typical  American  city,  younger,  that  is  all, 
and  ravishingly  fair.  Daughter  of  the  river  on 
whose  banks  she  stands,  she  is  the  destined  bride 
of  the  mountain  that  watches  yonder  and  waits. 
Hood  is  in  no  hurry. 

I  look  down  from  Council  Crest  upon  the 
growing  city  and  see  the  present  moment  of  my 
country  hurried,  crowded,  headlong  —  a  time  of 
deeds  and  large  and  daring  conquests,  but  with- 
out sign  of  "  that  over-faint  quiet  which  should 
prepare  the  house  for  poets."  Then  I  lift  my  eyes 
to  Hood,  serene  and  soaring  in  the  far-off  Heaven, 
and  lo!  a  vision  of  the  future!  not  the  Mountain 
that  was  God,  but  a  summit  that  is  song. 

Drink,  O  City  of  Roses,  of  the  pure  cold  waters 


MOUNT  HOOD  245 

from  the  snowy  heights  of  Hood.  Drink  and  thirst 
again.  There  are  other  springs  in  the  summit  than 
those  which  feed  Bull  Run  — fountains  higher 
up  of  living  water  such  as  flowed  in  Helicon. 


THE    END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aigrettes,  42,  43. 

Aneroid  Lake,  175. 

Animals,  wildness    persistent   in 

domesticated,     119-128;     the 

play  of,  159-168;  mother-love 

in,  213-235. 
Antelope,  a  mother  and  young, 

86-91. 

Automobile,  a  desert,  49. 
Avocet,  75. 

Badger,  54. 

Beard-tongue,  152,  179. 

Bend,  Ore.,  45,  53. 

Birds,  of  Three-Arch  Rocks,  3-7, 
9-11,  18-25,  197-210;  protec- 
tion of,  32-38,  42,  43;  at  Silver 
Lake,  Ore.,  74-77,  82;  of  Mal- 
heur  Lake  Reservation,  94- 
115;  Oregon  sanctuaries  for, 
97,  98;  mother-love  in,  109, 
1 10,  221,  224-235. 

Blitzen  River,  108,  109,  113. 

Blitzen  River  valley,  36. 

Boar,  wild,  126. 

Bob-white,  or  quail,  227,  231. 

Burns,  Ore.,  47,  48,  53,  61-68. 

Butterflies,  on  Mt.  Hood,  157-159, 
162;  angry,  161;  flocking,  162. 

Buzzard,  turkey,  226. 

Catfish,  218,  219. 

Cats,  wildness,  124, 125;  as  foster- 
mothers,  222-224. 

Cattle,  ancestry,  128;  the  herd- 
spirit  among,  128-131;  a  stam- 
pede, 131-143.  See  also  Cow. 


Chickens,  play  and  fighting,  161. 
Condor,  California,  34,  35,  226. 
Cony,  173-190. 
Cormorant,  Brandt's,  3,  4,  9,  10, 

22,  204. 

Council  Crest,  239-241. 
Cow,  the,  126,  127;  mother-love 

in,  213,  214.  See  also  Cattle. 
Cowbird,  225. 
Coyotes,  56,  71-73,  75-85,  92; 

the  coyote  of  Pelican  Point,  82; 

bark,  83,  84;   team  hunting, 

86-91. 
Crab,  215. 

Crow,  32,  33,  40,  161. 
Crow,  Clarke's,  36,  37. 
Cuckoos,  225,  226. 

Danish  heath,  12-14. 
Deschutes    Forest   Reservation, 

48. 
Deschutes  River,  canon  of,  29- 

31- 
Desert,  an  automobile  ride  aver 

the,  47-60;  the  wolf  of  the,  71- 

92. 
Dogs,  125,  126;  Pups's  play,  165, 

166. 

Egret,  American,  42,  71,  74,  80, 
96;  at  Malheur  Lake,  99-107. 

Elephant,  163. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quoted, 
126. 

Farms  and  farmers,  Oregon,  243, 


INDEX 


Fear,  contagion  of,  232. 

Finley,  William  L.,  7,  61,  63,  96, 
97,  231-233;  his  story  of  the 
egrets,  99-105. 

Fishes,  at  play,  167,  168;  mother- 
love  in,  217-219. 

Flicker,  227. 

Flowers,  on  Mt.  Hood,  151-153; 
of  the  Wallowa  Mountains, 
179,  1 86. 

Fox,  red,  84;  playing  with  a  golf- 
ball,  166,  167;  an  instance  of 
mother-love,  221,  222. 

Foxhounds,  125. 

Glacier,  on  Mt.  Hood,  154. 
Goose,  Canada,  77. 
Grebe,  eared,  107-114. 
Guillemot,  pigeon,  4,  21. 
Gull,  Western,  21,  24. 
Gulls,  3,  4- 

Hare,  little  chief,  173-190. 

Heath  hen,  34. 

Hen,  adopting  kittens,  224. 

Heron,  night,  77. 

Heron,  white.  See  Egret. 

Hibbard,  Dr.  L.  E.,  his  coyote 

and  antelope  story,  86-91. 
Hippopotamus,  160. 
Hogs,  126. 
Hornpout,  218,  219. 
Horse,  Peroxide  Jim,  134-143. 
Hunter,  the,  cruelty  of,  77,  78. 
Hyrax,  183. 

Imnaha  River,  173,  174,  179. 
Infusorian,  163,  164. 

Jay,  Oregon,  or  whiskey-jack,  40, 

41. 
Joseph,  Ore.,  243. 


Killdeer,  231. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  quoted,  189. 

Lake  Malheur  Reservation.    See 

Malheur  Lake  Reservation. 
Land,  in  Oregon,  242-244. 
Lupton's  Pond,  N.J.,  219. 

Malheur  Lake,  among  the  birds 

of,  95-115- 
Malheur  Lake  Reservation,  48, 

63,  97,  98. 
Mallard,  77. 
Mammals,  mother-love  in,  221- 

224. 

Minnows,  167,  168. 
Mother  Carey's  Chickens,  193- 

197.  See  also  Petrel,  Kaeding's. 
Mother-love,  109,  no,  213-235. 
Mt.  Hood,  37;  the  ascent  of,  147- 

159;  storm  on,  169,  170;  and 

Portland,  239-245. 
Muir,  John,  quoted,  36,  37. 
Mules,  175. 
Murre,  California,  3, 4, 19-21,  24, 

205,  229;  a  mother  murre,  230- 

235- 

Nighthawk,  Western,  55. 
Nutcracker,  Clarke's,  or  Clarke's 
Crow,  36,  37. 

Oregon,  the  land  of,  242-244. 

Otter,  164,  165. 

Owl,  burrowing,  55,  56. 

Paramcecium  caudatum,  163,  164. 
Pelican,  white,  74,  80,  112. 
Peroxide  Jim,  134-143. 
Petrel,  Kaeding's,  25,  197-210. 
Petrel,  Leach's,  195. 
Petrel,  stormy,  196, 197.  , 


INDEX 


251 


Petrel,  Wilson's,  196. 
Petrels,  193-197. 
Phalarope,  Wilson's,  77. 
Pheasant,  China,  120,  12 1. 
Picket-pin  (ground  squirrel),  55, 

>56,  81. 

Pigeon,  passenger,  96. 
Pika,  173-190. 
Play,   in   animals   and  in  men, 

159-168. 

Plumage,  importation  of,  33,  42. 
Plume-hunters,  99-107. 
Portland,  Ore.,  239-245. 
Primrose,  American,  55. 
Pronghorn.  See  Antelope. 
Puffin,  tufted,  205. 
Pups,  the  dog,  165,  166. 

Quail,  227,  231. 

Rabbit,  jack,  55,  72,  79,  8l. 

Rattlesnake,  75. 

Raven,  20-32,  34-36,  38-41,  43; 

Gilbert  White's  story,  227,  228. 
Reservations,  bird  and  game,  7- 

18. 

Sage  hen,  54,  55. 

Sagebrush,  47-60. 

Scorpion,  56. 

Sea-lions,  5,  6,  9-11,  24,  202. 

Shag  Rock,  5,   18-25,   198-210, 

228-235. 
Shrike,  55. 
Silences,  74,  75. 
Silver  Creek,  58. 


Silver  Lake,  71,  74-82,  92, 105. 
Silvies  River,  48,  62,  67,  IOO. 
Sparrow,  sage,  54. 
Spiders,  mother-love  in,  215-217. 
Squirrel,  gray,  161,  222. 
Squirrel,  ground.  See  Picket-pin. 
Squirrels,  young,  adopted  by  cats, 

222-224. 

Steins  Mountains,  48. 
Stickleback,  217. 

Thrasher,  sage,  54. 

Three-Arch   Rocks,   3-25,    197- 

210,  228-235. 
Tillamook  Bar,  3,  201. 
Toad,  Surinam,  220,  221. 
Toadfish,  218. 
Trout,  173. 
Trout  fry,  61-67. 
Tule  Lake,  82. 
Turkey,  the,  121-124. 
Turkey-buzzard,  226. 

Vulture,  turkey,  226. 

Wade,  the  boss  of  the  "bucka- 

roos,"  132-143. 
Wallowa  Lake,  176. 
Wallowa     Mountains,     40,    41; 

finding  the  pika  in,  173-190. 
Weeks-McLean  bill,  33. 
Whiskey-jack,  40,  41. 
White,  Gilbert,  quoted,  227,  228. 
Wild,  preservation  of  the,  7-18. 
Wolf,  timber,  84. 
Wolves,  71-73. 


M532970 


